Adventures of Waverly

Western travels and tales of Waverly, a Brittany pup Cimmaron's Wind River Angel CGC TKI BCAT FTN FITS CRD CFD NA3

[adventuresofwaverly]

Since the cat is officially out the bag: our website is live!!

Aviary Bird Dogs

Breeding Brittanys for hunting, companionship, and performance

Aviary Kennels has been a dream of mine since before I even brought Waverly home. I grew up breeding and showing livestock, and knew I wanted to continue that passion with dogs. Our kennel name is a tribute to the bird dogs and birds that we love.

Our motto is “Trainability, Versatility, Moderation,” because that captures what we strive for. Not just the next top winning show dog or field trial dog that leaves the gallery in the dust, but trainable, cooperative, intelligent dogs with the structure and temperament to succeed in a variety of venues. The Brittany has always been a moderate dog, and I will strive to keep them that way. To breed for flash or extremity with only winning in mind is to do a disservice to this wonderful breed.

I’ll summarize it in my favorite quote about the Brittany, written for L’Eleveur magazine in France, 1908.:

The épagneul breton of good origin is a very hardy dog, which points by instinct, searches at a gallop, is always on the move, searches everywhere in anticipation of a find, and doesn’t mess around. He is a bundle of nerves with unfailing stamina, which no thicket can stop.

Very intelligent, he loves his master, listens to him, has his eye on him at all times, waiting only for a gesture or a sign to obey, even seeming to go ahead of the desire of the one who employs him.

His nose is good and, as the dog knows how to use it, one is astonished to see the results that one obtains with such a small dog. The Breton dog, which is above all a dog of the plains, excels in hunting woodcock in the woods and in the thicket, and he unravels the trail of the woodcock with rare skill.

What can be said of his courage and endurance? He would not be a Breton if he did not have a heart… He retrieves with pleasure and makes an excellent retriever in the woods as in the marsh.

When I have told you that, by his very nature, he is the faithful companion of his master and the friend of their children, I shall have described his good character.”

We love this breed, and look forward to preserving their good character for many years to come.

[fkclou]

anonymously make an assumption about me and i'll confirm/deny it

[adventuresofwaverly]

Day 1 of the Super Special Pride Month Waves and Mom Only Roadtrip, in which we left baby Willa and my partner at home to fend for themselves to have some special Waves and Mom Only time.

[adventuresofwaverly]

A pupdate! Introducing Juneau, aka Aviary’s Gold Dust!

Juneau (née Tayo) went to her new home last week and has been settling in beautifully. Her new family reports that she still loves to growl when she plays and tug is her favorite game (awesome news for a little agility dog) and that her great aunt Tango is being very sweet with her.

Her family’s agility trainer and friends threw her a puppy shower and gave her a bunch of toys and puppy supplies, which is the cutest thing I’ve ever heard.

[shamebats]

Divorce 🤝 gender transition = a big costly life decision with too much paperwork that conservatives say will cause the end of civilization & ruin your life but if you actually ask people who chose to do it, they'll tell you their only regret is that they didn't do it sooner

[brighthounds]

okay i promise i'm only going to do this the one time. I promise I'm not going to continue to be annoying about this. but i am sharing my instagram post to tumblr because idk why not yolo. maybe this will actually be useful to somebody. and more can be found on the world's most cursed website/app.

[brighthounds]

hello again! there is now a free ebook version of this with additional tips, ideas, and thoughts on the subject of dog parenting while chronically ill (written by a dog trainer with chronic illness). It's pay-what-you-want (including the low low price of $0) and you can get it at the above link on Ko-fi.

[adventuresofwaverly]

Also obsessed with this one. Look at her. She is perfect.

Her family visited last night and we’ve confirmed that she’s gonna go be an Arizona agility girlie with her great aunt! They have no interest in showing and her tail will help her with wraps and tight turns, and she’s turning up the spice the older she gets, so I think she’ll be a super fun little sport dog.

So far she has a nicer expression and rear angulation than the liver girl, but liver girl has superior substance and front/shoulder assembly. I think Tayo will be built finer and more lanky like Waves, which will be great for agility but not what I was hoping to bring forward. I think even if she had been docked, I would have been leaning toward the liver since I really wanted to improve on Waverly in the substance/bone and earset without losing her nice front.

[adventuresofwaverly]

Oh to be a small Brittany contemplating Crimes Against Landscaping

[adventuresofwaverly]

The many moods of a 6.5 week old Brittany

[adventuresofwaverly]

The faces of three criminals who will not snitch on who chewed my work laptop charger

[adventuresofwaverly]

[misfitwashere]

I wrote a eulogy

"I wrote a eulogy for my best friend last week. Then I read it to him. At the pub. On a Tuesday."

He was alive, holding a pint, looking at me like I'd lost my mind. Maybe I have.

I'm Mick. I'm 70. The man across the table was Barry. Seventy-two. Best mate for 46 years. Met on a building site in 1979. He dropped a plank on my foot. I called him something unrepeatable. He bought me a pint after the shift. Haven't gone a week without talking since.

Three months ago we went to a funeral. Bloke we'd worked with. Cancer. The eulogies were beautiful - people saying what he meant to them, things they'd clearly never said to his face. And all I could think was, he can't hear any of this.

Every beautiful sentence. Every "he changed my life." Said to a room of crying people and a box of wood.

I turned to Barry. Whispered, "What a waste."

Drove home. Couldn't sleep. Because I realised, if Barry died tomorrow, I'd stand up and say extraordinary things about this man. Things I've never said in 46 years. And he'd be in the box, missing all of it.

So I wrote them down. Took a week. Harder than expected - not finding the words, but admitting I had them.

Rang him. "Tuesday. The Crown. Need to read you something."

"Have you joined a book club?"

"Just come."

Same corner table. Pint of bitter. Crisps. I pulled out the paper. He saw my hands shake.

"Mick. What's this?"

"Your eulogy. I'm reading it now because I'm not wasting it on a day you can't hear it."

"Have you gone mad?"

"Probably. Shut up and listen."

I read it. In a pub. To a man very much alive and very much uncomfortable.

I told him about the plank and how it was the best injury of my life. About the night he drove forty minutes in rain to help change a tyre. About how he rang every day for three months after my divorce and never once asked "Are you alright?" - just talked about football and weather, because he knew I didn't need a question. I needed a voice.

I told him he was the funniest man I'd ever known and his jokes were terrible and both things were true. That he'd been a better father than he thinks. That his wife's a saint and he knows it. That I'd have been a worse man without him.

He didn't look at me. Stared at his pint. Jaw tight. Doing that thing men do when the feelings arrive and they'd rather swallow glass than show it.

When I finished, long silence. Then he picked up his pint, took a sip, and said,

"You're paying for the next round. And the one after."

That was his answer. Perfect. Because Barry doesn't say "I love you too." He says "you're buying."

But in the car park, he hugged me. Not the quick back-pat. A real one. Thirty seconds. Neither let go first.

And he said quietly into my shoulder, "Don't read that again at the real one. I want new material."

Who would you write a eulogy for - while they're still here?

Don't wait. The flowers can't hear. The box doesn't laugh. Say it now. At the pub. Over a bad cup of tea. You'll feel ridiculous.

They'll look uncomfortable. It'll be the most important thing you've ever done.

Read them the speech while they can still hug you in the car park.”

.

[musashi]

Hey can you guys reblog Cheeseburger so he can take a sunbeam nap on lots of blogs. No other reason I just want you guys to see him.

[musashi]

So, Cheeseburger died on November 21st after an unfairly short battle with an unfairly rare cancer that is rarely seen in cats. I only got to spend a month with him after his diagnosis, and losing him has been the greatest heartbreak of my entire life so far. He was my best friend and my soul cat, and he was there for me when I was completely alone, for twelve long years.

I made this transparent PNG the night he died in preparation for one of the many ways I was going to memorialize him--a surface rug in his likeness that I planned on laying directly in the line of his favourite sunbeam. And I uploaded that PNG here, because this is the website where people post their cats.

I was not expecting the reception I got. Many people have pointed out that this post has more reblogs than likes, and how insane that is in 2025 when reblog culture is at an all time low. I didn't even talk about the fact that Burger passed away in the original post, it wasn't a tearjerker reblog bait or anything like that. People just loved Burger that much, in the same way I fell in love with him at first sight. He was such an ugly kitten.

Anyways, it's really special to me that so many people have reblogged my best friend. I made this PNG to memorialize him in a completely different way, and you all wound up doing just that in ways I never even imagined.

Thank you. Wherever he is, I know the sun is shining.

[merlinimbus]

Hello Dogblr! 💜

I recently brought home a sheltie puppy and thought it would be fun to share pictures of him and my other dog here on tumblr :D My Lab Fuji is 10 and Merlin is a little over 3 months.

As you can imagine I've accumulated a million cute puppy pics so I'll be posting those in the near future. See you around!!

[adventuresofwaverly]

We’re doing my Dog Hot Takes on Instagram and it reminded me of my favorite (North American) Dog Hot Take: docking Brittanys tails is almost entirely, if not entirely, a historic/aesthetic choice with basically no value to injury prevention while hunting. I say this as someone who actively hunts and hikes in some pretty gnarly cover.

I do believe that for some breeds, docking may meaningfully prevent hunting injuries, especially in dogs with short/smooth coats.

But Brittanys are one of the only pointing breeds with their coat type that are docked. They have moderately to heavily feathered tails that would be perfectly well protected. If they truly needed their tails docked for injury prevention, why do ALL the following breeds with similar coats traditionally go undocked:

All the setters

Drentsche Patrijshond and épagneul français

Deutsch Langhaar, kleine münsterländer and grosser münsterländer

Épagneul bleu de picardie and épagneul picard

(Photos stolen from Google, I don’t know these dogs)

Obviously some of these dogs will sometimes injure their tails (as dogs of all breeds do, I know multiple labs with amputated tails as adults and nobody suggests docking them preventatively) and docking may prevent some injuries in Brittanys because you can’t injure something you don’t have, but overall I find it disingenuous to act like it’s actually necessary rather than an aesthetic preference. I don’t care that it’s an aesthetic preference, I don’t think there’s anything morally wrong with it when done properly, but I don’t think we should pretend it’s something it’s not.

If 11 other breeds with similar coats who hunt at least somewhat similarly across multiple countries in many kinds of cover don’t need to be docked, Brittanys probably don’t actually need to be either.

[tuimiss]

chat asking the most important questions

[blueboyluca]

When you get a gundog puppy each one comes with a glock

[adventuresofwaverly]

Looks like lots of firsts with the puppies this week! Any favourite moments or milestones you wanna share? 👀

I think seeing them go from tentative and nervous outside to Excited To Explore has been my favorite transformation of the week. Overall their confidence and audacity has really blossomed. They’re all obnoxiously game to barrel into anything.

I puppy-proofed a section of the living room so we can all hang out together upstairs and be more a part of the household during the day while I work, which they’re LOVING. They’re also getting used to settling themselves and seeing me working without assuming my presence = time for attention.

My #1 favorite moment of the week was all of them choosing to nap in the crate of their own volition at different points. I really want to build positive associations with crating for them because Waves does NOT have that. We’ve worked to improve it but honestly I don’t think she’ll ever see it as anything except something to be begrudgingly tolerated. So I really want these babies to have happier feelings about confinement and I think we have a good start!