Spooks Foxie Lady was born on March 23, 2006 in Clayton, Ohio at about 10 p.m. She came into the world on a windy, rainy night and shared the whelping box with 8 other puppies. Like many others with her blood line, there has never been a lack of energy and persistence. As a pup she had all the characteristics of a great dog and the desire to retrieve non-stop.

As "Foxie" grew and readied herself for training, we (Zink Calls) were in the process of moving all our operations 3 hours north to our new home in Port Clinton, Ohio. With the workload, she got a late start on the training side, but when the dust settled, Foxie rode south in our truck for a duck hunt.

After the hunt was over, we made our way to meet Chris Akins at his training facility in Jonesboro, Arkansas. There she learned many skills from the Master Hunting dog trainer. After 13 months of training, she became a retriever with incredible drive, talent and skill. Upon returning home for her first hunting season, she was like a caged animal. As I often admit during the season, she is more dog than I am handler.

That was evident on our first hunt together. After a few outings she worked the kinks out of me, and we have become a pretty damn good team. Following our first season together - and a lot of bonding between her and the family - we decided to keep Foxie here in Ohio full-time. That's when we found Sean Hager.

Sean is a young local trainer with an obvious passion for working with hunting dogs. By mid-summer Foxie was flying through the "Hunting Retriever Test" and eating up every bit of any challenge Sean could throw her way. As a result, she received her Senior Hunter title at age 2 and her Master Hunter Title at age 3. Now at age 6, with thousands of retrieves to the blind, she concentrates on the finer things in life like laying around the office and sleeping all day dreaming about hunting. She's ready to go whenever we are . . .

Spooks Foxie Lady defines the term "Man's Best Friend." She has been our dog of a lifetime for sure and a part of the family; much like our third child. Foxie has an excellent attitude with her laid-back style and lap-dog personality. You can bet though when the shotguns are loaded, and ducks are on the wing, she's in high-gear mode then. We were lucky to pick her out of the litter.

- Fred Zink