Booker

Booker

Esp. Ch. Joksan NABAR The Gloucester CGC, aka Booker

22 August 2008 – 18 December 18, 2019
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To be honest, from the time Booker was a very young dog I had always had the feeling that once I had lost one of my boys, I would soon lose the other. This ‘feeling’ was something that never waivered, but I also didn’t give it much credence either. Booker was imported from the Netherlands to New Mexico by Rob Key for me. I can still vividly remember watching Rob walk him through the El Paso airport. Rob was beaming, walking this tiny, happy, self-possessed, puppy on a taut line. His head held high, tail up, prancing, the self-elected Prince of the El Paso airport – Booker. All Drent puppies are super cute, but Booker was more. In fact he was more with just about everything. His brother Paxson was the moderate, Booker was flash, bang, pop. Why not? I mean if you got it flaunt it. He was a handful, he was beautiful, he was naughty as hell, he was sweeter than them all. He was Booker, named after my favorite bourbon (back when it was personally attended to by The Booker Noe, a hand selected sugar barrel bottled, uncut, unfiltered, and likened to a runaway freight train - Booker’s) he was pretty damn much the same – too much. But when you liked it, really was it a problem? Just grin and bear it, be a man LoL. Booker was born for the show ring, confidence poured out of him, what could he not do? Without much fanfare he quickly became the first beauty Champion of Spain for the breed. He was judged by some of the most prestigious Group 7 judges in Europe – he owned them despite his shortcomings. He was guided in the art of hunting by Terry L.  Chandler Sr., a huge name in the German Shorthair community. Booker was a wickedly effective hunter of every game bird presented to him. He was hunted just about everywhere on just about everything with just about everyone worth a squirt of piss. His resume is missing only the prairie grouse, the mountain quail, ptarmigan, and the Himalayan Snowcock. The more he was bragged about the worse he performed, the less that was said, the better. He knew, he was in charge – that was Booker, take a sip, enjoy the ride. Fighting it was for little girls and sissies. Booker sired two lovely and large litters of Drents, with many becoming involved in active breeding programs her in North America and possibly even back in the Netherlands. He was on track to sire his third and last litter, but as fate would have it, his condition deteriorated at an astonishing pace and so was not. Neil Young can be quoted as having said, “it is better to burn out than to fade away” and that is certainly how Booker lived his life from the beginning. Go big or stay home. He started with a transatlantic/transcontinental flight and passed quietly with his head in my lap. Go run with Pax my friend, run hard.

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