Arrow’s Tali-Z-Man
(pronounced Talisman)
01/11/1995 - 03/12/2008

Carol chose Tali as her last puppy before crossing the "Rainbow Bridge" and, as Carol’s final champion, Tali continues the Arrow Kennel tradition of proper coat, outstanding structure, sound temperament and field ability second to none.

After a four-year absence from the breed ring, Tali won the Hunting Retriever Bitch class at the 2001 American Chesapeake Club National Specialty and went on to receive one of the eight Judge's Award of Merit (JAM) presented to the Best of Breed finalists!

Like a fine wine, Tali just gets better with age!

At The American Chesapeake Club National Show Specialty in 2007, Tali, at 12-years-and-8-months of age, she proved that quality knows no age limits by winning the Senior Veteran Bitch class in the Veteran's Sweepstakes and then going on to win the regular Senior Veteran Bitch class, the ACC Veteran's Challenge Trophy and was called back with the final 20 dogs for Best of Breed consideration. Tali celebrated by going Pheasant and Duck hunting when we arrived home from the specialty.

Agnes Sligh Turnbull wrote, “Dogs’ lives are too short. Their only fault, really.”.

Those of us who choose to share in the limitless joy of owning dogs also must share in the sadness of them leaving us all too soon. While each is a unique soul, some just carry, for us, additional memories of our own relatively short lives. Such is true of Tali.

When Carol was going into the final stages of lung cancer, she chose a puppy from a litter bred by Art and Mary Ellen Mazzola to continue along the road of my life’s travels after she was gone. To say that she chose a truly great dog would do injustice to them both.

When Tali arrived at our house, Carol slept on the kitchen floor with her the first few nights. It must have been during this time that she imparted to Tali all of the things she would need to know to carry me through the dark times of my life. She must have also told her that the uniqueness of the Chesapeake Bay retriever was marked by their truly independent spirit.

Tali always did things her own way, a trait my Mother both admired and commented on frequently over the years. To put this admiration in context, my Mother, at 84 years of age, rather than ask me to come over and change the light bulb outside her front door – I lived three miles from her – climbed up a ladder to do it herself, fell off, broke her arm, drove herself to the doctor and I only found out about it when I arrived for our weekly dinner date and saw the cast on her arm.

The first time I took Tali duck hunting my partner and I were hunting in my favorite pass shooting blind on the point of Fletcher Island at Lake Cuyamaca. The first flight of ducks came over and we took four of them, one hit the water and the other three hit out of sight on the island. Tali made the water retrieve and we then walked up the hill to look for the other birds. The first we found on the side of a hill along the path to our blind. I told her to “find the bird” and Tali went up the hill and out of sight. Mind you, none of us could see where these birds came down through the pine trees. A minute or so later, Tali came back with a Mallard, delivered it and disappeared over the hill again. Moments later, she returned with the last duck. In the thirteen years we had together, she not only never failed to find my birds, but almost always found someone else’s’ too.

Our first goose hunt, when she was less than two years old, was one of those experiences that stay with you for life. We drove for two days to Katy, TX, with my partner and met up with one of his acquaintances, Tom, and two people that Tom had invited from Louisiana. The first day of hunting was from a ditch with Texas “rags” surrounding us. My biggest fear was that Tali would go to retrieve a goose that wasn’t dead and be beaten by its wings. Well, the first goose I shot went down well outside the rag perimeter and I sent her from the ditch. She got about halfway through the rags and got confused, having never seen them before that day. I walked out to her and sent her from where she was and she got almost to the end of the rags and stopped again. I, again, went to her and sent her from the edge of the rags to the downed snow goose. As Tali approached the goose, it suddenly reared up and began squawking and beating its wings – my nightmare come true. Tali briefly stopped, looked the situation over, ran around to behind the goose, clamped down over its wings and brought it squawking all the way back to me. From that point forward, she understood what the rags were and everything she needed to return with a live goose. The second day we were laying in a mud fl at, garnering a multitude of geese. Now, Tom had brought a yellow Lab and he and his two friends from Louisiana turned out to be real characters. We were spread out in a line with one of Tom’s friends on one end followed by Tom, another of his friends, myself and my partner, Dave. They claimed birds they did not shoot to be theirs and Tom kept sending his Lab on Tali’s retrieves. At one point, Dave shot a goose some 30 yards outside of his position and Tom’s friend, at the far end some 80 yards from Dave, yells out, “That’s my bird! I got me a triple!”, and Tom sent his dog to retrieve it. This went on all morning. Finally, we were done and had unloaded our guns and began picking up the rags. At that point, a speckled belly decided that he was going to land in our spread anyway. I had one round in my magazine and decided that this goose was just too stupid to reproduce and needed to be removed from the gene pool. I fired, the goose went down and Tom sent his dog after it. Well, Tali had had enough and went to retrieve “her” bird. Tom’s dog was some 25 yards from where the goose fell; Tali was 60. The Lab got to the goose a moment ahead of Tali and was picking it up when Tali hit him with a cross-body block that would have made an NFL lineman proud. The Lab went tumbling head-over-heels as Tali deftly removed the goose from his mouth. Then, as only a Chesapeake would do, she trotted over to Tom, shook the goose in his face, and then returned and delivered it to my hand. Neither Tom nor his friends said another word that trip. Tali retrieved 43 geese and sixteen ducks on that three-day hunt – most on the final day.

She finished her bench championship easily but her “my way” attitude kept her from titling beyond her JH. As I have never really shown any of my dogs as specials, she had to be content with being a hunting dog.

However, after not being in the show ring for four years, at the 2001 NSS in Tacoma, WA, I entered her in the Hunting Retriever Bitch class. Shown by her good friend, Dana Bleifer, she won that class and went on to the Best of Breed competition. During her individual exam in front of the Judge’s Seminar participants, the judge commented that Tali was going to be “naked in about five minutes” as tufts of her shedding coat hung in the air. Apparently she had enough though; as she went on to receive an Award of Merit as a BOB finalist. At the banquet and parade of titled dogs that night, I apologized for Tali not being present as she was “in the hotel room, in front of the air conditioner, trying to save the last three minutes of coat”. At the Supported Entry following, Dana kept saying that the judge didn’t like Tali, but I told her not to give up, and when the judge was down to his last four dogs in the BOB competition, she and Tali were there.

At last year’s NSS in CO, Tali was entered in the Veteran Sweepstakes and the Senior Veteran Bitch classes, at twelve years and eight months of age. She and Dana won those classes, made it to the final 20 for Best of Breed consideration and we brought home the ACC Veteran challenge trophy. This was, as it turned out, her last show and a fitting way for a grand old hunting dog to finish her show career.

In November we went pheasant hunting in the Imperial Valley and in December we were at the lake duck hunting, not knowing that both would be for the last time.

I know that my Mom and Dad, Carol, Art, my other very special Chesapeake, Ranger, along with all of the other dogs that have shared their lives with me, will be there to greet her at the Bridge.

This evening, Ike took Tali’s snow goose toy and is curled up with it, one could say protecting it, strange in as much as a stuffed toy normally has a life expectancy of about three minutes with him. Brady has been constantly at my side. Who says that dogs do not know when another pack member has gone to the Bridge.

Tali was an independent soul who loved life and her Chesapeake spirit will be with me always. Farewell, “mama dog”. I’ll see you again one day at the Bridge.