THE GOOD LIFE www.ncwgoodlife.com | April 2023
Story by Susan Lagsdin
The principal and staff of Bridgeport Elementary School were open to the concept of using dogs in the classroom, but first they wanted tangible evidence that canine therapist Louise Day with her English setters could have a positive effect on students.
Louise describes the demonstration that day in 2017. “We walked into the room, and all the children were in a circle on the carpet. Suddenly, my two dogs pulled me hard both ways on their leashes, right and left. I let them go—each one immediately went and leaned into a different child and started nuzzling them.” One girl clutched “her” dog and broke down in grateful sobs. (You guessed right: the teacher later confirmed that those two abused and neglected children were possibly the neediest in the group.) A second classroom yielded a similarly distinctive pairing of dog-plus-kid.
That’s powerful testimony to a dog’s intuition, but Louise wasn’t totally unprepared for the scene. She is the head of the statewide service dog project sponsored by her Masonic group, Eastern Star. Besides doing training and demonstrations for the cause, she and her dogs work directly with young children, teens at risk of suicide and hospice patients.
In addition to being licensed for therapy, Louise’s award-winning dogs train for scent trials, where their incomparable sniffing skills are tested in competition. Four of her setters enthusiastically hunt upland birds with her husband Norman, but they also compete in formal hunting trials held in the spring and fall at a ranch near Almira, Washington.
They’ve even tried the Fast CAT “coursing ability test,” a newish American Kennel Club (AKC) dog sport that’s essentially a timed hundred-yard dash following a lure, with speeds that can exceed 30 mph.
For the last four years, her dog Tabitha has competed in agility classes, where she races, turns, jumps, slithers and weaves through obstacles. (While Louise heals from knee surgery this season, another handler will do the vigorous side-coaching.)
Louise believes that she’d never have tried these varied activities if she hadn’t been elected president of the Wenatchee Kennel Club (WKC) in 2015. Until then, she said, for most of 50 years she’d concentrated on showing and winning hundreds of ribbons and trophies with her purebred dogs in the two events she’d grown up with. Specifically: Conformation, a breed-specific equivalent of a beauty pageant; and Obedience, a test of good training and a dog’s self-discipline.
But over time the AKC, and, correspondingly, the WKC has opened to mixed breed and rescue dogs and added many more categories beyond the traditional to attract competitors. As the new leader of the now 200-member local kennel club, Louise started attending varied dog events around the country and was startled at what she saw.
“That first year really opened up my world!” Louise said, “I realized I’d been a dog snob, and I was so amazed to see dogs of all kinds doing all those classes.” She, and of course her troupe of English setters, started learning new skills.
“It’s made me so much closer to them,” she said, “I can really see different sides of each dog.” She still shows in Conformation classes; “The last item on my bucket list,” she said, “was Desi winning National Regional English Setter Specialty.” But moving from controlled and precise to rigorous and playful seemed to bring out the best in the whole team.
Louise is happy to train and teach at WKC, especially with its new and (and already expanding) facility. The club’s members live all over the region, and some people who sign up for their puppy’s first class soon become ardent dog fanciers. There’s plenty to involve them, from year-round 7-week classes to the club’s major dog show at the Chelan County fairgrounds in October.
Louise makes sure her basic classes include a bit of the fun and games of advanced dog sports. Rivalry is not an issue. “One of my greatest pleasures is mentoring other dog owners,” Louise said. “And their wins make me happy.”
Dogs have been a constant all her life. Louise grew up in Illinois with purebred dogs, and her husband Norman gifted her with a miniature poodle in 1969 when they first moved to the northwest. From that moment her passion was grooming, breeding, training and showing dogs, with English setters eventually replacing poodles in her affections.
Both career Forest Service employees, the Days and their three children, a daughter and twin sons, spent years in new postings with only a few pauses in Louise’s dog involvement. Their move from Portland to Wenatchee offered Louise a well-established kennel club to support her well established avocation.
And it meant more family in the area – Louise says she sometimes hosts 20 relatives at holiday dinners. “My kids showed dogs when they were young, but none of them were very interested after that,” she said. “Now it’s just my 12-year-old great-granddaughter who comes to the shows with us.” And her mother, Delores, who at age 94 has put her 18-year-old miniature show poodle, Rusty, into her daughter’s capable hands. And Norman, uber-helper behind the scenes who’ll show a dog or two when needed and takes them to hunt trials. And her daughter Lori who generously volunteers to cook meals for the volunteers and out-of-town judges at most major kennel club events.
Dogs have indeed become a family affair—she and Norman keep seven at home now—and at 74, Louise looks forward to more years collaborating with kennel club members, raising more and different dogs (Tabitha will give her a new litter this spring), traveling to upcoming shows and trials, and offering canine therapy. And although she’s retired from full-time employment with the Forest Service, Louise still works with a small team that manages budgets during the fire season. “It helps me support my dog addiction,” she smiles.
