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5:42:00 PM EDT
Feeling Quiet
Hearing the gurgling of the marine tank (it needs water!)
The dog breed scrapbook
We lost our beloved Belle Belle when Mandy was about eleven years old (the same day as my husband's close friend Craig died.It was a very rough time for our family and grief). Belle Belle had been the perfect companion for Mandy and Tabby, shaggy, sweet, tolerant, with a "dog laugh" on her face all the time. She was a Golden Retriever, and very happy to wear clothes for dress up or to allow the girls to crimp her long hair with the crimping iron. She was a fine Old Lady, and I loved her dearly.
Her death left a huge hole in our lives where a dog belonged. But my very elderly cat Pagan was becoming decrepit with age (she was twenty one) and we could not see subjecting her to a new dog quite yet.
Mandy became obsessed with dogs. We collected many dog books, and she learned many obscure breeds of dogs. (I will never forget the day when she saw a dog in Canada and told us it was a Cavalier Prince spaniel. My husband told her tolerantly that it was a Cocker...but it turned out Mandy was correct!)
She had a tidy business dog walking.
We met many breeds of dogs by asking the owners if we could take a picture of their dog with the girls. We never had a single person turn us down, and we have a great scrapbook of the girls and many different breeds of dogs. The girls also illustrated the scrapbook, wrote facts about the breeds, and drew maps to show where the breeds originated. They wrote about what the dogs were developed for. (Did you know poodles were hunting dogs?)
Now we are continuing this family project with Shelby...the other day we saw this cute wee "weiner dog" in a very unusual color. I asked if she was purebred--she was--and we had a wonderful conversation with the owner. We discussed how they were bred to go down burrows in search of prey. They are very brave little dogs.
It is a painless way to learn about dogs, their owners, geography, animal classification....and love. Dog owners love their dogs, and are always proud to talk about them.
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No. I did not know that poodles were hunting dogs. I wounder what kind of poodles they were. Well I gess that they were a fox hound mix with somthing elc. ? Aney way it was good that the girls started to make a scrap book about difrent kinds of dogs they saw.
From,
Lauren -
We are well on our way to doing this also. Emma is a dog lover and a half.
I had a friend who worked for a breeder of Cavaliers one summer.
Traci -
I killeed Belle Belle myself by giving her an overdose of phenobarbital intentionally. It is a long, but good story. I'll write it sometime soon. She had a good death--she died in my arms, happily drunk.
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That doxie has coloring so much like my beagle, Molly! How cute :)
xoxo
6/10/07 7:05 PM
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