My Big Sister Turns 50!

My sister Jan with husband Charlie. Photo taken this January in Sydney when we visited them in Australia. Jan and Charlie were very good hosts and arranged and organized all the details, and put us up in their home for several weeks. I'm sure they are still recovering!

Jan and Charlie met at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Charlie's Mom, Margie McIver was riding for the Australian dressage team and Jan was a groom for a rider on the Canadian 3-day eventing team. Charlie hitched a ride to Canada on a cargo plane with the horses, and then about four months later they left for Australia...again on a cargo plane carrying horses.

They married and raised two great kids, Katie and Charles. They have a good life, full of family, friends, and animals; and lots of laughs.

Here is Jan at three years of age. I love our Mom in this picture!!! She was stylish with that hat and the horned rimmed glasses. That's me in her arms...my big birthday is right around the corner!

Gathering of the Aston-Miller clan up in Sudbury. Back row: Our Dad Phil, Nana Miller, our Mom Janet, Aunt Pauline, cousins Cathy and Melanie holding our first Sheltie Dusty, Papa Miller, Uncle Jim.

Bottom row: Cousin George, Kim, Jan, Dave and Jim

Photo circa 1971

Jan and daughter Katie when they came over three years ago to celebrate my Mom's birthday.

Jan doing what she loves best...riding. This is her new love, Acorn doing a half pass.

Love you Jan...Happy Birthday!!!

Kim and Pete

"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.

Poodle Hair

With the arrival of "Bunny" yesterday I thought I'd look for a picture of our first dog, a silver miniature poodle named "Duffy". Well I found this one, and he's not the only one with poodle hair! I'm not sure what my Mom did to me, but I think its a perm as my hair is absolutely straight. So here I am holding Duffy with my sister Jan.

Bunny has me charmed. She rode next to me on the way home from the airport and we shared an ice cream cone (my favorite way to bond with puppies!). We stopped at my Mom's and had a good game with the tennis ball. She discovered herself in the mirror and spent a good while chatting to the poodle puppy and trying to get it to play. Once home, she met all the dogs and didn't quite know what to think of her new home and all the Shelties until we went inside and once again she found that poodle puppy in the mirror! She kept bringing it toys to play with, but to no avail. She settled with me and a good game with her squeaky ball. I love her springy, bouncy way of getting around and how she uses her paws. I don't have a good picture, but here she is this morning finding her reflection in the window.