Specialty Emotions

For some strange reason, I have spent the day overwhelmed by a sense of sadness.  I didn't know why at first, and then it came to me:  it's Specialty time.

Entries closed a week ago. Our entries are down, but that's not it - everyone's are, I'm told, because who can afford to drive several hundred miles at the price of gas these days. It's because most of the work is over and I have time to think, and this happens to me every year, and to my wife who is the Specialty chair.  It happens because we just spent time preparing our ads for the show catalog, and that always makes us think of past Specialties and those dogs that are no longer with us, and if we happen to have veterans to show we think of them and realize that they won't have many more opportunities to get out and show their stuff (and, of course, get fed as bribery to stand pretty).  They also get petted by little children, and by old timers who remember them in their prime. Some of the old timers actually cry.  How undignified! 

This year, our thoughts center on two in particular.

The first, Misty, is one that hits us almost every year -- hell, every day is more the truth.  Misty was Kellyn's Midnight Mist, our "typey little black bitch" that we had such dreams for, and who would have made the most wonderful mother because she adopted every one of the litters we had when she was with us.  She was dysplastic, and tore both of her cruciates along the way.  She also was in an accident that resulted in her digital flexor tendon being almost severed.  She recovered from that one, though, and accumulated eight championship points (and one major) before she was two.  The dysplasia and the cruciates are what retired her, and what made her Mama's couch potato.  She spent her last few years as Mama's Secretary -- under Mama's feet while Mama worked from her home office as a project manager for a major corporation.  After a couple of years, every conference call began with the standard round of inquiries -- "How's Mama's Secretary?"  As she grew old, her black muzzle became riddled with the grey that added dignity and wisdom to her soft, kind expression.  But we both knew her time would come.  In the end, she did not give us our wish of saving us from having to make the hardest of decisions.  It was but two days before the Specialty that year when Dr. Tom came out to the house and helped her cross The Bridge where we know she and her mother, and now her sister and brother, are waiting.  Her Memorial in the Specialty catalog began with the words, "We have a secret, you and I...."

And that's as far as I ever get....

I said there were two this year.  The other is our eleven year old boy, Ch. Simerdown's Kellyn Tanqueray.  We have Linda Vaughn of Simerdown Labradors to thank for the years of enjoyment we have had with "Tank" - The Tankster. And we have Shelly Rekow of Pleasurethyme to thank for handling him to the last ten point and major that he needed to complete his Championship.  What makes this year special for Tank is that he is retiring after this year's Specialty, when he will be shown in the Veteran classes.  It's also special -- and quite remarkable -- because just eight weeks ago we almost lost him to an unexplainable ailment.  Over just a couple of days, he bled out internally and collapsed literally on the doorstep of the vet's office.  Dr. Tom took one look at the whiteness of his normally pink gums and uttered, "Oh, no....".  Immediate and quite heroic measures somehow stabilized him, and he defied all logic by making it overnight.  He was transfused twice.  Full blood work was done, and full body scans and X-rays to confirm his spleen was functioning and that there was no cancer.  To this day, neither we nor our vet can explain what happened.  But he is here with us now, happy as a clam and "nickering at the fillies" as the horse folks say.  So his journey into the ring in a little over a week will make more than a few people cry.

You know, that's about all I can say at this point.  Hug your old ones, and let them sleep on your feet tonight.  Saluting all our veterans....