Dogs, Dogs, Dogs

When I was a baby, granny and grampa  had a little dog. It was black and white, had a long fur and was called Molly. Not having a memory of my own from that time, both my parents and granny had told me how Molly had always been around that little baby, never letting get any stranger get close to my stroller. Molly was guarding me like a treasure. When I grew bigger I rolled around on the floor playing with Molly. Some times when it must have gotten too much for Molly, she growled until I let up. Ever since that dog had disappeared out of my life I had a longing to get my own dog. I became a dog-lover. When we lived on our farm in Norway we had two dogs, a mix-breed and a Riesenschnauzer. Bea was the one who wanted the Riesenschnauzer. So here were two dog lovers. Our dogs were named Lisa and Sjiva. Both were small puppies when they came to us. It was winter when Shiva came to us. Bea taught her to go outside to do her business. LIke I said, it was winter and we had lots of snow. Shiva had no problems with that, she just found a spot in the snow. Several months later the snow was melting and we noticed that Shiva was still doing it on snow. But that white stuff was disappearing at an alarming rate. So one day it was gone. Shiva got outside to find a cold white spot, but got increasingly desperate as she couldn’t find a single bit of snow. She was circling around on the lawn, looking and looking. Finally she gave it up and did it on the fresh green grass. She had learned something new. Lisa, the mix breed, had a different thing going. She loved to fly after neighbour’s sheep, in fact any sheep she could come across. One day we did a walk down the valley. Behind a texas gate sheep were grazing. Lisa was walking up to a mother sheep and  came between the mother and her little lamb. The mother sheep wasn’t happy about our barking dog and got downright angry. When Lisa wouldn’t stop barking she snorted and started stomping her forefeet on the ground. Lisa had never experienced something like it and got afraid. Within a second she had turned around and was stampeding home, leaving us standing on the road – speechless and wondering. We continued our walk and when we finally got home Lisa was not visible anywhere in the yard. I had to call out her name several times before I spotted her sticking her head around the corner of the house. Obviously, she was expecting to see that angry mother sheep coming to take her. Suffice to say, she was a “Happy Camper” when she saw that it was just us, her family, coming home. Dogs have been important to us all the time and when we bought our property in Alberta we took over two dogs from the previous owner. “Boomer” was a 5-year Labrador og Molly was just  a 10-12 weeks old puppy mix. Boomer was a brave dog which has been fighting off black bears more than once. He had scratches from bear claws on his head and hated the slightest odour from a bear. Molly, being a small puppy was hiding in a dog house until she got older and followed Boomer on his expeditions. We had a 120 acres for us and the dogs and they ruled over every acre. When we traveled south in August 2008, Boomer got sick with cancer. He was 11 years old when we had to relieve him from his pain. It was the most terrible day since we came to Canada. Luckily, we still had Molly, who got even closer to us now that Boomer was gone. We can’t imagine to live without a dog. They give us more than we ever will be able to give to them.

Bea and Shiva way back in 1988

I with Lisa  in 1988

    Boomer and Molly