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Circa late 1970s:
Christmas morning with Dawg
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As a child we owned a phenomenal dog. It was 1974 and he came to us on the
coldest day of the year as a stray — we adopted him after looking for his
owner, albeit unsuccessfully. His name ended up being "Dawg" since we took too
long to decide on a name and once we had, he had already decided his name was
Dawg. We had many good years with him, but he crossed the Rainbow Bridge in 1985
from issues associated with hip dysplasia. Although diagnosed with hip dysplasia
by the neighborhood vet, the more I learn about diseases afflicting dogs, the
more I can't shake the thought what we went through sounds more like degenerative
myelopathy — again another one of those "we'll just never know" situations.
Fall 1981:
Enjoying a romp in the leaves with my buddy.
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And so, I've spent much of my adult life looking for dogs who reminded me of
him — I was sadly always unsuccessful. One day I came across Shilohs, P&C
Ridgewood Shiloh Shepherds to be exact, and I saw a picture of their "Lee" on their website.
He reminded me so much of my Dawg I was in tears. I was just overtaken with emotion and had
to find out more about these "Shiloh Shepherds."
And so my quest began . . . several years later, hundreds if not thousands of hours
spent on discussion and research, and finally two Shiloh Shepherds added to our lives.
Circa late 1970s or early 1980s:
Dawg's favorite place to be, enjoying the snow.
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Was my "Dawg" a Shiloh, probably not. But one last time he helped me, even from the other
side of the Rainbow Bridge, to fill a void that had been missing since I lost him. He led me
to these dogs and specifically to Hamish — my current heart and soul dog! I miss you
Dawg, I love you, I thank you once again for watching out for me.
He's an honorary Shiloh Shepherd in my eyes.
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I'm Not Afraid of No Stinking Vaccuum Cleaners:
Lounging around and showing the Kirby who's boss.
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A Study In Pastels:
A very special lady to us during my childhood was artist
Virginia [Coffey] Schlitzer. She did this award-winning pastel of Dawg, based
on a picture we had of him under the dining room table licking out a Peter Pan
peanut butter jar. We miss her dearly.
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Bloopers:
See, we even got blooper pictures back when we had
instamatic photos. Jeesh, ours was a Kodak hand crank — oh the memories.
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