Thor Kain working out of his home in Carbondale, PA has again earned the US Complete Amateur Handler of the-Year recognition, 2023-2024. This is a record fourth consecutive Handler-of-the-Year Award that he has earned.
Thor has a string of setters and a single pointer that he guided to consistent winning efforts over the field trial calendar year. Ch. Super Storm Cliff, 2X RU Ch. Super Storm Liz and 2024 US Complete Amateur Invitational Champion Super Storm are the shooting dog-aged setters he handled to wins. Additionally, the pup Super Storm Fred earned some firsts and his promising pointer derby Mohawk Mill Tilly scored for him.
Coming into the 2023-21024 field trial season Thor shifted his competitive strategy. While he may go to an occasional local weekend trial, he has chosen to focus primarily on regional and national US Complete championships. This makes earning wins for his dogs with him as a handler more difficult, more challenging.
As an amateur, Thor is faced with the challenge of training and conditioning his dogs while holding down a highly responsible managerial position with a health care company. Additionally, Thor has a young family that he is devoted to. He usually picks up his son from preschool every afternoon and then the two of them spend some time with the dogs. His son, Jackson, loves the dogs perhaps more than Thor.
Typically Thor works his dogs while other people sleep as he’s up at or before 5am every day. Often he roads his string beginning in the dark. From late July through May, Thor tends to his dogs multiple times a day keeping them healthy, sheltered and clean. Then when its time to attend trials, he often leaves in the middle of the night to get to the event in another state. Simply put, Thor puts a lot of hard work and makes significant sacrifices to put himself in position to win this award.