Time to continue this blog...it's been awhile!

Today is April 27, and it's been quite awhile since I last wrote in this blog (Oct. 29, 2015)! I guess I need to get back on track, so here goes...

   

Alitza was in 4-H, and in these photos she was showing our Shetland Sheepdog, Lady, at the Hancock County Junior 4-H Fair. Lady won a first place ribbon. She was such a good dog, that when the judge told Alitza to go away from the shelter where the dog show was being held (so that Lady couldn't see her), Lady continued laying in place, looking around constantly to see if she could find Alitza, but she didn't get up or move from where she had been told to 'lay.' She was such a good dog...

 

That fall, in 1993, Alitza was a sophomore in high school, and was 15 years old in this photo. I was working at the Kanawha Reporter newspaper Mondays, Tuesdays, and until noon on Wednesdays when we needed to have the paper pasted up and ready to take to the printers. Life at the research farm got busy in the fall, with the crops getting ready to harvest, and with fall field work taking up much of David's time.

Lady Joins Our Family

Above are Lady's parents - Willcroft's Carlota Rose Marè (above) and Willcroft's Encore (below). In 1989, we had decided we wanted to get a dog, and David had experience with Shelties in his youth, and felt they were extremely nice dogs. So, I did some research and found a gal who was involved in the Iowa Shetland Sheepdog organization. She recommended me to a woman in Ft. Dodge who had Shelties for sale, and these dogs were from some of her own stock, so she was confident in their quality. We contacted this lady, and made arrangements to go and see the puppies she had left. There were just two of them remaining, and Lady was one. The other puppy was very cute, somewhat larger than Lady, and a bit skittish, which is sometimes a Sheltie trait. But, Lady was calm, very friendly, and very cute. So, we bought her, and took her home. Lady's registered name was 'Sophisticated Lady Rose.'

Here is Lady, both as an adult, and in a couple of photos taken when she was a new member of our family. She was 4 months old when we got her, and she was very sweet. She was also very easy to house-train, and was completely house-broken in a week. We have found that most Shelties will do almost anything to avoid having an accident in the house. None of our dogs ever learned to 'go to the door' when they wanted to go out, but sometimes when they were about to burst, they would go from room to room, as if looking for a way to get out so they wouldn't have an accident!

Lady was a very friendly and sweet dog. In the photo above, she is making acquaintance of my oldest grandson, Russell, at holiday time in 1989. My son, Doug, is laying in the recliner, enjoying the show!

As she grew older, Lady always had a fascination with bunnies. Our daughter raised rabbits for 4-H, and in the center photo above, Lady is trying to 'make friends' with 'Bunny,' and she is so excited that her head is a blur! On the left is Alitza working on obedience training with Lady, and on the upper right is a photo of Lady following Bunny as she hopped around the yard.

Lady was a charmer. She made friends everywhere we went with her. Often kids would come up and ask if they could pet her, and we always told them 'Yes.' She was good at posing for photos, and would sit very still until I 'released' her.

In 1992, when David's brother got married in Washington State, we rented an RV and drove to their wedding, with Lady along. She was not a calm rider...and sometimes got car sick from her nervousness. But she was always a good dog, and seemed to enjoy the various places we visited, once we left the movement of the RV. 

Later in 1992, we had Lady bred to a show-quality Shetland Sheepdog, thinking that we might try raising Shelties. But, Lady had been the runt of the litter as a pup, and I think she was just not cut out to be a brood dog. The first breeding took place at the home of the owner of Wolfgang Mozart (or Wolf) - seen below. This was the same gal I had contacted earlier, and she was studying to be a vet at Ames. Her male dog was a show dog, and was a handsome fellow. But, Lady was so nervous at being away from our home for a week that she stopped eating. We picked Lady up after the week was over, and brought her home to wait for some anticipated puppies. Well, at about the correct time, Lady began showing the signs of an approaching labor, so I put her into our kitchen with the doggie gate in place, and kept an eye on her. After some time, she did have a brief labor, but no puppy. Since I had signed a stud contract with the owner of Wolf, I contacted her and we agreed to try again. The next time, I picked up Wolf, and brought him to Kanawha (Lady's 'home turf!'), and I assisted with the breeding a few times during the week he stayed at our house. I will have to explain my comment about 'assisting.' Wolf was about 3 times larger than our petite Lady, and in order for him to mate with her, I had to support her. After the breeding, Wolf's owner decided to meet me at the veterinarian clinic in Ames at the ISU campus to have Lady artificially inseminated, thus making certain that the breeding worked. So, I took both dogs down to Ames and we did that. And we finally got a positive pregnancy! From this breeding, unfortunately, we only got one puppy, and that little girl was more than 50% white (not good for future solid Sheltie stock). 

At the top is our 'Sophisticated Lady Rose' who had been registered with the American Kennel Club. Below her is Willcroft Wolfgang Mozart, the sire of the breeding. Even though the breeding gave us a puppy who had too much white, and therefore was not good breed stock, we grew to love this little imp, and she held a special place in my heart until her death at the age of 8 years old on November 26, 2001 (and I still think of her....) Her death was somewhat a mystery, but I will relate more of that later...

Here are some kids who came to the research farm to see our huge pumpkins. Lady always was a good 'hostess' to anyone who came to visit.  The photo page below describes the effort made to get our little 'Solo' after bringing the stud to our house for the breeding...

This page is from Lady's scrapbook, and tells the story of Solo's birth (she was named Carali's Solo Silhouette). She was born June 10, 1993. Her birth was a bit difficult as she was born breech. I had to assist with her delivery, but she was a healthy puppy, and Lady was a good mother, so Solo grew nicely. But, that experience brought a quick end to 'Carali's Kennels.' (Carali was the combination of my name and our daughter's name.) Due to her coloring and the likelihood that any puppies Solo might have in the future might have had some defect that would render them unsuitable for breeding (blindness, hip dysplasia and other problems arise when Shelties have too much inbreeding, and that sometimes happens when attempts are made to assure the standard for the Shetland Sheepdog by keeping the breeding within purebred stock.) So, the decision was made to have both dogs spade as soon as Solo reached an acceptable age for that, usually around six months.

Lady was our companion on all of our vacations, even though she didn't like riding in vehicles. When David, Alitza and I went to Mexico, David's mom met us at the 'Boondocks' (gas station and restaurant on I-35, about midway between Kanawha and Cedar Falls), and she took care of Lady while we were gone.

After Solo arrived, we had two dogs to take with us on trips, and most of the time it was just fine. I do remember the first trip we took when Solo was a puppy. She was not yet house-trained, and we had her in a crate in the back seat of the car. She was such a 'busy' little puppy...

Even as she got older, Solo was always more of a 'challenge' than Lady. Here are photos of her as a puppy...very cute, but also very curious, and quite an 'imp.'

The lower right photo above shows Solo as she checks out a chipmunk on our trip to Western Colorado. 

I had intended to sell any puppies we got from breeding Lady, but after trying a bit to find a buyer for her, I realized no one would equal the stud fee we paid to get her. I had also devised a contract a buyer would have to sign to promise she would be in a fenced yard or on a leash any time she was outside, but the few people who responded to my ads were not willing to do that. So, we kept her. Above are some more photos of our trip to Colorado. Lady did all she could to make Solo behave, and their bond was pretty complete by the time Solo was full grown. Eventually, Solo stopped being so pesky, and became our very beloved pet. We had our two beautiful Shelties, and all was good.

When you raise Shelties, one thing you try to do is get them to look like the breed 'standard.' With Shelties, ears are very important. They are supposed to look perky, but just barely tip on the ends. So, often our dogs had little pieces of sheep wool glued to the inside tip of their ears to 'weigh' them down a bit so they would shape into the desired Sheltie ear. As you can see from these photos, she has one ear that just wouldn't cooperate!

In the photo above, both dogs are being very good at the Christmas celebration at the home of my sister Jean. I would tell them to come and 'lay' near me, and they would usually do that most of the time. I usually let them wander around after the work in the kitchen was done, but during that busy time, I tried to keep them from getting under foot.

Here are Solo and Lady in the front yard at the research farm. They were really cooperative for pictures!

One of the cool events at Kanawha was when foreign students came to visit Kanawha, and we often hosted some of them at our house overnight. In the photo above, two boys from Central America were our guests, and they really loved having the dogs to play with. We hosted people from Japan, Lebanon, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Central America. We also entertained young people from Germany who came to work at the research farm various summers. Our dogs may have helped some of these young people feel welcome when they were so far from their homes.

Here are a few more photos with the dogs. In the circular photo, David had cut down a big elm tree, and he posed the two dogs on top of the fallen trunk for that shot. The photo on the right shows the two dogs at the top of Harney Peak in the Black Hills on one of our trips. The two little girls enjoyed being allowed to hold onto their leashes. And, of course, the photo on the left is of a jack-o-lantern carved by Alitza, and the two dogs posing beside her.

On my next blog post, I will continue my stories about our two Shelties, Solo and Lady. We enjoyed being in their presence for so many years...