[Dean Romig]

See that pretty setter in my avatar at the left? That’s my Gracie ‘Olga’s Grace of Coronation’ the canine Love if my Life.
Kathy and I were at Hausmann’s in June of 2016 when I got a call from Legh and Jenn Higgins of Coronation Kennels in Lowell Vt that Coronation’s Olga had given birth to the little girl we had put in an order for. It was 10:15 at night and we were asleep but upon that news we were ecstatic…
The sire was Coronation’s Earl, named after Legh’s grandfather, Earl Twombly who began the line, “Twombly Setters” in 1926 and of which Corey Ford purchased the father and son team of Cider and Tober.
Kathy and Gracie and I had the most amazing love of the field, the birds, and love of each other imaginable.
Dorothy came into the picture several months after Kathy’s extremely sad departure from the scene, and Gracie fell in love with Dorothy almost immediately, somehow knowing Dorothy would be my ‘mate’ my new Alpha F to my Alpha M.
I/We loved Gracie endlessly and she loved us equally. She was a great hunter, far better than I could ever know… far more adept at hunting grouse and woodcock than I could even imagine - certainly my superior in these endeavors.
It has been our ultimate pleasure to have shared this sporting and domestic life together. It has been our privilege to say the very least.
Gracie left us in January of 2024 after a bout of inoperable, incurable spleen cancer.
Certainly we have never witnessed a champion bird dog but to me, to us, Gracie was a Champion in every way… never to be equalled in our lifetimes.




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