Originally, this Blog was called: "Lad A Dog". It struck to me that I would have to play secretary to my own dog, so I changed it.
It worked out quite nicely since Laddie declined the offer of the responsibility of having to write nonsense. He said that I could do that without any help at all as I do it so often.
Laddie is, as you might have guessed from his photograph, is a West Highland White Terror - oops!- I mean Terrier. [Small joke.] He has been a Service Dog for eight of his eleven years. He is also a Velcro Dog ... we are a Team and wherever I am, there he is. I am god; he is dog. That's the deal. It's always been that way with every dog I've owned, trained, worked with throughout my life.
I tell people that a dog is a dog until he bites you, then he is Mister Dog .
After the sudden death of the dog I'd owned before Laddie came into my life, everybody kept asking me, who had never been long without dogs and cats, if I was going to get another dog. "Not unless it weighs under two ounces," I joked.
It took another two years and an awful lot of research to narrow down a list of possible breeders and breeds that would be right for another canine companion, and for me.
A friend of mine had owned Westies and kept telling me how much fun" they were. I met my friend's Westie and took her out for walkies and examined Daisy very closely. I noticed her eyes. Something was not right. I brought her back to her home and informed my girlfriend, who herself could barely see as she was close to 90 years old herself, that she had better get Daisy to her Veterinarian immediately as I suspected that what I was looking at was cataracts. She hadn't noticed, but took Daisy back to her Breeder who had his Vet check her out and sure enough, she underwent eye surgery the following day and Daisy returned home about a month later, with clear eyes and in perfect health. Sadly, my friend died a few months later and Daisy was returned to her original breeder.
I had fallen for Daisy, which rather narrowed my list of a possible new companion to that one breed.
Laddie was from a litter of pups and I chose him basically for two reasons:
1) sound health, and 2) no less important, his temperament.
I hadn't wanted a male puppy as most of my dogs had been female, but he was the one.
I knew he was going to be 'a dog with a job', as were all my dogs, so he had to have an incorruptible temperament and be a follower, not a leader. There's only room for one of those in my life with dogs, and I am it. So while he was not 'showy', and maybe a little larger than the other pups, we actually chose each other.
It was the best choice I've ever made concerning dogs. He is spectacular in every way imaginable and a few I had never imagined. That's saying a whole lot because I've owned some superb and magnificent dogs in my life.
