Micklewood Scud
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Rigby                     Alfie

Like Dad’s family, Rigby also has relatives in the UK. If you can remember back to my header photo post, which has been surprisingly popular, I originally used a photo of Rigby’s 9GG, Micklewood Scud. This generated a response from an individual (Margaret) in England, who also owns a springer descended from this great spaniel. She was kind enough to share a short bio on her pup, Alfie (aka Tricky Treacle). Those of you who know Rigby will see some similarities in temperament (minus the calm in the house bit). For your enjoyment, here is the copy of Alfie’s bio supplied by Margaret, complete with descendancy:

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Alfie (kennel name Tricky Treacle) was born in Essex, England in 2004. He was born in the same village as the highwayman Dick Turpin – which I always think explains a lot! He was one of 8 puppies (his parents’ 2^nd litter). His mum had to be rushed to the vet when one of the puppies became jammed in the birth canal. In spite of this Mother and puppies all survived. Having been born at a vets, Alfie has loved the vets ever since and gets very excited whenever we go there wanting to catch up with all his friends!

Alfie’s parents belonged to local farmers and although neither of them were Field Trial winners or champions they were both working gundogs. His mum was black and white and his dad a much lighter liver and white. He’s got lots of Badgercourt in him, and looks like a real throw-back to Badgercourts Druid and Colleen.

This photo of Alfie was taken about 18 months ago around the time of his 3^rd birthday. He’s liver and white, as you can see; the liver parts of his coat become a gingery-auburn in the spring/summer changing to a dark-chocolatey colour in the winter.

We live in the Fens, a large area of land reclaimed from the sea (a bit like Holland) in the east of England. We live on the Cambridgeshire/Norfolk border so there’s lots of bird life around here – although mainly not to be shot at – swans overwintering from Siberia on the Ouse Washes, Canada geese, ducks, herons, even the odd cormorant. We also have pheasants and partridges.

Although I don’t go shooting you can clearly see Alfie’s gundog genes – he loves retrieving and is a brilliant retriever both over land and water. He’s also very useful when you’re doing laundry – anything dropped will be retrieved and brought to you.

He loves long muddy walks, or days spent at the beach. A walk is not a walk without a swim, and his favourite game at the moment is Frisbee. But he’s also quite happy to veg out in front of the tv, and especially enjoys cookery programmes! I think this may be because he learned to open the oven at a young age, and on one memorable occasion devoured ¾ of a chicken that was cooling in the oven. Sadly I haven’t come home to find my dinner cooked yet but I’m hoping that’s something he’ll learn… He’s got a great personality – enthusiastic and athletic, very keen to learn new things but generally calm in the house and very affectionate.

Alfie like Rigby is a descendant of Micklewood Scud, I would suspect as they’re both 9xGGpuppies that Alfie’s ancestor must have come from one of Scud’s last matings in the UK while presumably Rigby’s ancestor must have come from an early mating in the States (I don’t know when Ludlovian Socks was born but Pinehawk Sark was born in 1956, when Scud was 7, which would suggest that Socks was born shortly before Scud was exported) The line from Scud to Alfie is as follows (I’ve marked S or D for Sire or Dam) I’ve just given the direct line rather than the pairings:

Micklewood Scud EFC (S)

Ludlovian Socks (S)

Pinehawk Sark EFC (S)

Parkmaple Dainty (D)

Parkmaple Busy (D)

Parkmaple Bramble (S)

Parkmaple (S)

Gorsty Gester EFC (S)

Read Head Riley EFC (S)

Black Face Riley (S)

Great Grani Grace (D)

Tricky Treacle (Alfie)

Alfie’s also related to Scud by a few more generations (as was my previous spaniel Ben) via the Don of Bronton / Farway Tina and Sallie line.

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Thanks for the info about Alfie, Margaret!

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To compare descendancy, I’ve included three of Rigby’s lines, two from his pa (Strong Signal ‘Signal’) and one from his ma (Sporty Spice ‘Spice’):

Signal & Spice

Line 1 (Signal)

Line 2 (Signal)

Line 3 (Spice)

A closer look at the line through Spice indicates Alfie and Rigby are even closer related. Welcome Alfie as one of our official Clan spaniels!