Avery Creek Retrievers

01/18/2025

I guess my page is no longer recommendable because I have posted things that are considered sensitive to some people. The posts that FaceBook flagged as sensitive content were pictures sent to me by dog owners, with their dogs, and the ducks they retrieved. Also the picture I posted of Jed and his first buck. Lastly, they flagged my profile picture. Facebook suggests I change my profile picture and delete the posts that may be offensive to some.

So legally harvested waterfowl and deer and photos from a hunt test are sensitive content?

01/17/2025

Dog Days of Winter at the Whitewater Center in Charlotte, Saturday Feb. 15. We will be there all day and will be doing some retriever demos throughout the day.

Charlotte, NC

01/15/2025

One change I would like to see, as it pertains to entering hunt tests, is that if HRC clubs are going to open their tests up on Wednesday evening, have it open at 8:00pm EST and not 7:00pm EST. When they open at 7:00 it makes those of us who attend Wednesday night church services have to make a decision, either skip church or take a chance there will still be openings. Would backing the opening time up one hour really cause that much of an issue?

01/14/2025

Scott, Bella’s owner, just called a bit ago to let me know that the ultrasound confirmed we will be whelping and raising a litter of Boykin puppies. Litter is due Feb 12, so it’ll be a Valentine’s litter. Pups will be born and raised here.

01/07/2025

The text from Adam simply said “Cannon put in some work this morning”.

01/04/2025

River

01/02/2025

Photos of Riley taking photos of the dogs today.

12/28/2024

Jethro living his best life in Kansas.

12/27/2024

HRCH Walker’s first retrieve was a banded wood duck. That’s pretty dang cool.

12/23/2024

Josie putting in work in Kansas, Keith called to say she did great and even had to bust ice. It’s so fun when they put it all together.

12/21/2024

1,406, one of, if not the only MLB record that will never be touched. RIP to the greatest lead off man to ever put on a pair spikes. I remember as a kid, me and some friends would set up a Slip N’ Slide and pretend we were Rickey Henderson sliding headfirst stealing second base.

12/17/2024

This past Saturday we had a number of owners/clients here for a training day. We focused on both marking and handling drills they can do with minimal space/equipment once the dogs go home. It was cold, but we had a really good time, watched some dogs work and really got into a good discussion on how, no matter level the dog is trained to, it takes time for them to transition to working for their owner, it’s not a turn key deal. I’m not sure how many times I made reference to “You cannot pick them up Thursday, drive them to Arkansas Friday and think they are going to hunt for you Saturday; that’s not fair to the dog just setting it up to fail”. I enjoyed the time we spent and the effort from each owner to set the dog up for success when it heads home.

12/08/2024

Laney walking Pirate and Riley walking Dixie through the parade. Super proud of how they handled the dogs with the crowd and distractions.

12/07/2024

All decorated up for the Boiling Springs Christmas Parade. ZoomDog Supplements Purina Pro Plan

11/30/2024

I haven’t made any social media posts about this because I didn’t know what to say/type, but today we will be celebrating the life of Nicole’s brother/my brother-in-law Matt.

Many reading this may know his two years story battling cancer, for those that don’t the details of that are unimportant as it pertains to this post.

I met Matt 22 years ago this month. He and Nicole had a rental house together when her and I first started dating. At first I think we were a little standoffish of one another, me with the shaved head, Ariat boots and drove a truck. While Matt had the long hair, piercings and was in a band. It took a bit but the more we were around one another we realized we had similar senses of humor, or as Nicole says, the maturity of 5th grade boys. Before long we really got along and enjoyed hanging out.

Back then all three of us were broke all the time so we would hang out at their house and Matt and I would watch COPS while Nicole was doing whatever. That honestly became a Saturday night tradition for a good long while.

I have a lot of good memories of Matt. I remember the time we tried to ride bicycles the full loop of Cades Cove. Neither of us knowing the second half of that loop is straight uphill. It liked to have killed us. I remember when we changed the timing chain on his 4-Runner out in front of parsonage at Carpenter’s Grove Baptist Church. We didn’t have any air or power tools, so we wrenched everything of the engine. We got the timing chain cover off and Matt looked and said you ever done this before? I said nope, not on one of these, he said me either, but we got it back together.

There are a ton of other stories, rather similar I could share. Like the time we lost his mom at the Asheboro Zoo. Nicole was furious we didn’t know where she wandered off to, but Matt’s response was, hey the whole place is fenced in, she ain’t going anywhere.

Over the last many years, we weren’t as close as we were for the first few years of me and Nicole being together. We lived an hour away, he had a wife and son, Nicole and I were raising our children, so life happened. I can say I enjoyed the times I was around him and he is one of the few people that I have spent any significant amount of time around and never had a cross word with him. 99% of the time we were around, we were laughing at some stupid immature joke one of us would make.

That all being said, what I liked most about Matt was how close he and Nicole were. They were close growing up from what I have been told, but as adult siblings they remained very close. Always talking/texting one another. I always appreciated how good he was to her.

Today we celebrate his life and his valiant fight with cancer, and the two years he lived his best life while battling a horrific disease that was eating him up on the inside.

Matt was just a good dude, I’ll miss him, but I know Nicole lost a piece of herself when he passed. This has been very hard on her and she was with his wife Mara the last several weeks of his fight, they were by his side until the end, so hopefully today brings a little closure and allows some healing to start.

I just hope that one day when I see Matt again, we can find a couch and a TV and watch a COPS marathon.