On May 1st 2008, our golden retriever, Amber, died.
I came home from work and she staggered from the utility room into the kitchen
and collapsed. She had had a stroke and the vet said she had had enough, so put
her gently to sleep. She was about 12 – having been a rescue, we are not
certain of her exact age, but we believe she was about three when she came to
us. Unfortunately, I came to digital photography a little late, holding out for
film a long time after everyone else had converted, so my photos of her are
all on paper and not the computer.
Work meant it was not possible to have another dog – neither
of us had the time to devote to training and looking after a young puppy and
rescue dogs could be so unpredictable until they settled in properly. So it wasn’t
until the summer of 2013 we started to consider the possibility of another dog.
I was about to stop working, so I would be at home all day; other half was working part time – plenty of time for
a new family member.
We searched rescue dogs first of all, but there never
seemed to be quite what we were looking for. We are an active family and really
wanted a dog who would do activities with us – hiking, camping, agility/working
dog trials etc. So we researched the availability of puppies. Many years ago,
we had had a beautiful blue merle collie puppy and we decided we would look for
another one like her.
It was a difficult search. We finally found a breeder – but
she had no puppies available at that time. Then, the dog she had died in a tragic accident –
and of course that had been the dog we had hoped would sire our puppy. There
would be no more puppies from him and, as it turned out, the breeder packed in
breeding shortly after that too. His name was Spark and as you can see from the link, he was an absolutely stunning slate merle.
Back to the drawing board, then, or rather, the computer.
Eventually, we found a breeder whose bitch was soon to give
birth, with the possibility of merle puppies and – as a bonus – it turned out
that the sire of these puppies was none other than Spark.
The puppies were born on 27th September 2013 –
one black and white boy, three blue and white girls and one – only one – merle
girl. And to add to the excitement, she was not a blue merle but a slate merle, like her grandfather.
A brief explanation
of the colours for those who don’t know:
Merle means the dog is ‘blotchy’ or mottled, rather than two
plain colours.
A black and white dog with the merle gene will have the
white collie collar and tail tip, with the rest of the body being grey and
black in a mottled pattern and is called a blue merle.
A blue and white dog (ie ‘off’ black – like the black has
faded in the sun – they are a beautiful seal grey when tiny puppies) with the
merle gene has its main body grey and blue and is called a slate merle (well,
‘blue merle’ was already taken by the black and white merles!) They are quite
rare.
Confused? So were we at first. Once you get past the fact
that a blue merle dog is black and white and a slate merle dog is blue and
white, the rest falls into place eventually.
We rang the breeder. She encouraged us to visit as soon as
we could and so we visited on October 3rd. The puppies were only
five days old! They looked like little sausages.
The merle girl was
very pale – almost white. We were assured she would get darker as she grew
older. I wasn’t so sure and it took us three days to decide whether we would
have the merle or one of the blue-and-whites. We eventually chose the merle,
hoping we hadn’t made a mistake.
The two together:
We also met her mum and dad – mum was a dainty, pretty
little black and white collie called Amy; dad was a beautiful blue merle called
Kai and, as I said before, was the son of Spark, the collie we had so admired
and had hoped for a puppy from. We got the next best thing and have not regretted our
decision at all.
Dad, Kai:
Mum, Amy:
Right from the start we realised she had a mind of her own.
Even at five days old, she was pushing her brother and sisters off the mat! She
was enquiring, interested in everything, and suitably cautious – not nervous or
timid, but also not willing to rush into anything. We visited a couple more
times (we would have gone more frequently, but the breeder was 250 miles from
our home) and took photos. She grew rapidly and played well with the other dogs
in the household, including her siblings. She would run about, then flop where
she was for a quick nap. What we didn’t realise at the time was that these
might well be the only photos we would ever get of her asleep!
Our second visit:
Getting bigger (with one of the other household dogs):
Asleep!
The time soon came round for us to collect her and bring her
home. The breeder was a bit stumped for something to call her, so she asked us for a
suggestion or two. We decided she looked like a flurry of snow on a dark day,
so told the breeder that we thought we would call her Storm, as she looked like
a snow storm. And so she was officially named Snow Storm; we call her Storm for
short.
First day in her new home:
She has the most stunning blue eyes and long eyelashes:
The first few months were hard work. Toilet training was not
something that came easy to her (or me!) and she had lots to learn about what
was appropriate and what was not. It was also cold and dark outside, being
November, so going outside for toilet duty was not something either of us
relished. Add to that her basic training...we had our work cut out. But she is
an intelligent little thing and soon learned most things. Lead training is
something we are still working on, but we can now send her to bed using a hand
signal only and she has learned to sit, lie down, and all the other usual commands
needed early on. In another few months, we will start training her towards
agility too, as she needs the stimulation of something both active and clever
to do. My only concern is that I will let her down in the ring, as I am nowhere
near as quick as she is. She can’t start that before her 1st
birthday due to the strain it puts on the joints and she can’t compete until
she is over 18 months of age.
She loves to run in the garden (thankfully, we have a large
one!) or the woods when we are out and about. And that was what gave us the
idea to do long distance walks with her. Again, she can’t start these too early
as it could cause her problems later on, but we can (and have been) building up
her stamina and the distances we take her. A couple of weeks ago, we did 6 miles and last week, she walked 9 miles with
us (in two 4½ mile stints, with a rest in between) and she seems to love it. I'll be posting about one of those two walks soon.
So I began to research long distance walking with a dog and
backpacking with a dog – and found Paul Watson, who has walked several long
distance paths, including JOGLE, with his dog Midge. Sadly, Midge is ten years
old, is now blind and has developed some arthritis and it is looking like his
long distance walking days are over. Having read Paul’s blog with great
interest, we are now hoping that Storm will be able to follow in Midge’s
footsteps and become the next long distance dog walker.
Storm at the beginning of August 2014:
So there you have it - a quick overview of how we got our pup and what we intend to do with her. I hope you enjoyed it and will come back for more as I post about the training walks we are undertaking and then the long distance walks as we complete them.
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