Glenailsa Crackerjack was our first Golden Retriever. I imported him from Scotland in 1991. His sire was the famous SH CH Linchael Cartier of Gloi, his dame an Amirene bitch – a very special and fantastic combination. .
Cracker was my inspiration to start showing. He was such a beautiful puppy and we had quite a few „green with envy“ faces in our puppy training class. Cracker’s show career after a bit of dabbling in puppy classes, was quite funny: Frankfurt’s International Dog Show was his big start into more serious showing. I entered him in Junior Class under the Grande Dame of the Golden Retriever World in Germany: Patricia Busch. Her ring steward was Ralf Koch (of the Crow Valley), a wellknown Golden Retriever breeder and more recently also Breed Specialist Judge. Cracker and I were moving in the ring quite novice-like when Pat Busch said to Ralf Koch: „Do you think she knows what she’s got on her leash?“ Well, soon thereafter I knew it too! Within a few shows he was Junior Champion and continued his show career to become German Club and VDH Champion as when he was almost 8 years old he also won his Luxembourg Champion title. It was Cracker who got me addicted to the breed and my desire to breed.
This all despite his „E“ hip score (severe hip dysplasia) in Germany which meant that his studdog career never took shape. His brothers and sisters (9) all had hips evaluations well below the breed average score – Cracker was the odd ball. Tough luck!
However, this didn’t stop him from becoming a model (he was the Golden Retriever in print advertisement of „Cremor“ and he was an intellectual as well – he read Harry Potter in English! But he also could be a „wood head“ – especially in his older years – we had many chuckles.
In early summer of 2006 he left us – he was 15 years and almost two months.
Cracker – take care my boy! Over the Rainbow Bridge you will have lots of lovely Golden girls waiting just for you – and they won’t care about your hips like the breed clubs do! We’ll meet again there!