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| High 5 from Sydney on Day 3 |
As I begin writing this report, Sydney, our 9 week-old
Miniature Schnauzer is currently out cold on her Granny Ethel “ET” Taylor’s
chest. She is named in honour of Shauna’s late dad and ET’s husband, Dr. Sydney
Taylor, and her official name is Dogter Sydney Taylor. Her namesake loved the
breed and took wonderful care of his dogs. After a two month stay with us, today
ET is returning to her home in Toronto to resume whatever sense of normalcy one
can imagine in this much-changed world. While she does have a wonderful caregiver,
she has remained, much to the consternation of her over-protective children,
remarkably independent.
The journey to our new pup Sydney has been a long and crooked
one. We lost Jasper a little over a year ago. For all of us to whom pets are
family, you know that there is grief involved. I’ve spoken with so many people
in the last year who have lost a pet, and their common advice was always “Oh,
you’ve GOT to get another dog, and do it soon.” When a little time had passed we
contacted Jasper’s breeder, who is one of the best in North America, because we
wanted the best chance of acquiring and raising another healthy dog. The Taylor
family had once had a horrible experience with a pup from an irresponsible
breeder, and that dog had a constellation of health problems. Jasper was a
healthy dog and lived a good, long life, and we wanted another dog like her. By
the way, we went through a comprehensive interview with Jasper’s breeder before
she would accept US.
Regrettably, we were not able to acquire another pup from the
same breeder, but it was a year of hoping we would. First, we had to wait for
one of her bitches to go into heat. Then, when that happened and she was
inseminated, the pregnancy did not take. The next possible window of
opportunity was months later, and when the insemination was to take place,
there was a terrible snowstorm which prevented the two parties from getting together.
Our final hope was for a pairing with one of her males and a champion bitch, but
when that mating was to occur, there was another complication.
Shortly before we got the news about the last failed pairing
a strange thing happened. A Canada goose landed on Jasper’s grave, which is
overlooking the lake in front of our house. It stood there for the longest time
without moving, then flew away. Shauna took it as a sign, and called the
breeder, hoping for good news. When it became apparent that another pup was not
in the cards, and that we had now waited just over a year, the breeder put us
in touch with one of her respected colleagues, a woman in Ontario whom she
trusted to be a responsible breeder. In a Serendipitous turn of events, we were
just in time to acquire one of the three pups from her latest litter. The pup
had been spoken for, but the buyer turned out to be unacceptable, and the
breeder had just returned the deposit. Had we not called when we did, that pup
would have been sold to another acceptable owner within an hour.
5/19/20 - We posted a short video of Sydney last night on
Facebook and I think it made a lot of people smile. I think we could all use a
little good news. I don’t usually believe in signs, but perhaps that Canada
goose knew something we didn’t know.
Written
by Jamie Oppenheimer ©2020 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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