May 31, 1993 - March 5, 2005
"Shooter"
Steve Bechtel, Jr., Owner & Handler
Bill Totten, Trainer & Handler
Shooter was offered to Steve Bechtel by Don Remien and a few others who had a minor financial interest in him when he was two years old. At the time Steve was training with Bill Totten, so Bill trained with Shooter on a trial basis for a month or two before Steve decided to buy him.
Shooter developed quite fast. When he was offered for purchase, he was a qualifying dog. It was agreed to let Don Romein keep him for another few weeks to finish up some things he was working on. During that time he graduated out of qualifying, so when Bechtel took delivery, he was an open all age dog.
Bill worked with him rather extensively and he overcame fairly quickly a couple of the very minor flaws found in his development. During the first year, when he had just turned 3 years old, he qualified for the National Open and went to Ardmore, OK and was a finalist.
Although he was bred a very limited number of times, every litter produced one or more FC or AFC champions.
Steve had the opportunity of training with Shooter rather extensively in his early years and really found him to be a very pleasant dog to work. He was very agreeable, tried hard to please and was a quick learner, although he did have a mind of his own.
As the record shows, in five of the National Amateurs, he was the finalist in two of them. He did not have a large number of Amateur points because he didn't run a good part of a season after he qualified for the National Amateur, thus he didn't have a shot at the Purina High Point Amateur Dog, nor was he in the top group of high point Amateur Career Points.
He was retired from competition when he turned 10 based on the theory that he should wind up his career at the high point. Upon retirement he was given to oldest son Gary Bechtel with the understanding he could use him for a gun dog and a house pet, but could not have him compete.
In his last years of retirement, Shooter lived in high luxury. He slept in Gary's bedroom and finished his life in grand style. He developed cancer in his rear end and passed away due to cancer. He went fast when his health started to fail.
He was a great dog, one of the all time best.
