Perspective "It means a determination to breed complete dogs, not caricatures with numbers and letters, dogs with brains and beauty."
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Just
A Pet ..
We tend to get so wrapped up in competition and breeding for the show ring
that too often, we forget what dogs mean to people.
So
You Want to Show
The dog you take home is the same prospective winner you brought to the
show, he is as good as he was before the judge placed him.
The
Personal Dog
"A lot of professionals get so caught up in the business of
"doing dogs" that they forget what started them in that career,
the dog that was always your closest friend."
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On
The Lighter Side
Reasons why it's great to be a dog. If it itches, you can reach it.
And no matter where it itches, no one will be offended if you scratch it
in public.
ODF Communities
Better known as Old Dog Folks retirement places.
by Tam Cordingley
We are all
facing age. Many of us are also facing health problems. We need to plan
what is going to happen to us and to our dogs.
The inevitable end isn’t going to a retirement home in Florida and
giving up our beloved dogs. Nor is it going into an assisted living
facility where we are the only ones who understand the terrible loss
that having to live without our dogs can be. To many older fanciers, our
dogs are our lives, we don’t want to give them up. We have been dog
people all of our lives and can’t imagine living any other way, BUT what
do we do if we need short or long term help?
Haven’t most of us seen an older fancier who has fallen on hard times?
Most have too many dogs and failing health. Many have limited finances
but get along by skimping either on themselves
or on the dogs. These are the ones who end up living in a room in the
kennel, or dying in a filthy hovel, alone, with the dogs seized by the
local authorities.
I have witnessed decent people, with excellent quality dogs, going to
jail for bad checks, written to show and promote a good dog. Spending
their last days lying in an unmade bed in a room of the kennel,
drinking, and reliving the glory days through the scores of show photos
lining the walls. We have all read newspaper accounts of people found
dead in their homes with no one there but their dogs. The dogs they
“loved” so much they had 50 of them living in cages because they were
too old and ill to take them out and clean the crates and runs.
We are a healthy lot in the main, but illness or a fall can get the best
of us down. It doesn’t have to be the end of our active lives. Short
term assistance by people who do understand our involvement with dogs
can get us over the hump and allow us to live independently for many
more years.
I think we would benefit from a place, one to 25 acres, where many
fanciers can each have a home, on an acre or two, with a small kennel.
We can live close to others who also have dogs and have access to other
people who understand. We can all check on each other’s welfare without
having to live in each other’s pockets. In our area we have an e-mail
network. We are blessed with a member who finds either funny or
inspirational messages and e-mails all of us every AM. We are all
supposed to hit reply to all so everyone knows that we are OK. If
someone doesn’t answer the message one of the members of the group calls
to check and make sure we haven’t fallen or had a heart attack. .
What I envision is a place where there are neighbors who can alert a
trained kennel person to take care of the dogs while we are
incapacitated. A place where there is a person who can take care of the
house and yard, in short a roving housekeeper. This is not for the care
of those who should be in a hospital or who need daily care but for the
security and short term care to help us live at home in safety and
security longer.
To start I have a piece of land in the North Carolina foothills that
would be suitable and I’d be willing to head up the first one. It is a 5
acre lightly wooded place, with a ton of road frontage. A home site
could be anything over 1 acre. The only restrictions are no mobile homes
except log ones and all dogs have to be kept fenced unless on leash. If
it works we could also have a community building where we could hold
classes or get togethers . Ultimately I would love to see many such
communities scattered over the nation.
See About
The Author (above) for Tam's contact information.
thc/2006
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