"Dusty"

It is dark today. The clouds are low and there is a cold rain and the forecast is for 10 to 15 cm of snow tonight. There are many things to do before the snow comes, but I'm procrastinating. I'm thinking of how I got involved with dogs.

When I was eight years old my father was asked to look after a friend's dog for the weekend. This beautiful white "Husky" came to our home and I was in love. I forget her name, but she was shedding badly...that I remember. Big tufts of white fluff left in the grass in the backyard. I called her a Husky as she looked like the dogs I'd seen in books pulling sleds. My father corrected me and said she was a Samoyed. I didn't understand, so he showed me the picture of a Samoyed in the encyclopedia and there I saw all the dog breeds! The Sammy had to go back home, but I was hooked on all the breeds of dogs. From that moment, I kept the "D" encylopedia in my room and my sister, Jan, and I would rate the dogs plus or minus as to which ones we preferred.

In 1971, my Mom decided that we'd get a dog, (we had finally broken her...wore her down with our pleading!) She had seen Shelties in the neighborhood and thought that they were the perfect dog for our family. They were not too big, nor too small, they were intelligent and they were beautiful. She first went to a breeder who had a litter of blue merles. We begged to have one, but she didn't care for that colour (she's changed her mind since!). We found a breeder who was an obedience enthusiast and she had a litter out of her blue merle female and a tri-factored sable male. We chose the light golden female (a sable merle). We took her home and named her "Dusty", a name Jan and I had chosen for one of our imaginary dogs (a blonde saluki). Dusty was the greatest pet. She was smart, she was a good size and she was very pretty. Here she is with my brother Jim around 1979.