A-Z Challenge - 'Z'

Z - Zounds! It's Zara

Well I've made it to 'Z' again and still feel astounded that I managed to find dogs to get here from 'A'.

An Alsatian pup name Alfie featured at the start of the Challenge. At the end there's another Alsatian.

A young Alsatian named Zara

I used to meet Zara in the village but unfortunately she became very territorial and attacked the postmen. On her lead she was as gentle as could be, but she has had to give way to the Labrador pups that appeared under 'L'

I must pay tribute to all the dogs that I have met personally; not one objected to being photographed. I suspect however that owners in the village will be pleased that only their legs and shoes appeared in the shots.

My special thanks to my daughter's dogs - Sam, Maxie, Gem. Jack, Cody, Scout and Lily, not forgetting Gabby the Golden Labrador who has made up the latest "Gang of Four" in Michigan.

The Gang of Four (No. 3) - Gem, Gabby, Scout and Lily

And by the way Gem had her 15th birthday recently.

Sam was my daughter's first dog. He appeared earlier in the Challenge with his sister Maxie.

This is the tribute to Sam written for him after he had been put to sleep in 2010.

Sam Was My Good Boy

"Sam was my first dog. He was such a good boy.

Good? Maybe not—at least not at his first home in Troy.

The words “come” and “no” and the electric fence meant nothing to him.

And he was a lab, yet he couldn’t fetch, retrieve, or even swim.

Sam was my first dog. Okay, maybe he was “kind of” good.

Chasing deer in their new home, he and Moo would escape through the wood

They’d come home with deer parts, possums and the occasional mouse

And traipse their big dirty paws throughout the whole house.

Sam was my first dog. But he really was good.

He never fought for food, chewed up shoes, or rolled in mud.

When the new rescue dog, Jack, tried to eat his food and bite his nose--he didn’t mind.

When Jack was sick, it was always Sam who would lie with him—he was SO kind.

Sam was my first dog. And, YES, he was a good boy.

From the day we chose each other, he brought me so much joy.

Even when he went blind and had to live in the dark,

He still took himself for walks and played, and, boy, did he still love to bark.

Sam was my first dog. He was good and I love him still

He holds a place in my heart that no one will ever fill."                          

A-Z Challenge 2014 - 'A'

My A-Z posts this year will be about dogs I have known, dogs I talk to and some I would love to meet. Regular visitors to my blog will recognise some of them I’m sure. Hopefully you will find links to literature – fact and fiction, films, famous dogs and even a dog owner or two. As usual I am expecting to cheat for some letters of the alphabet; I’m sure you will see why.

A – Airedale, Alsatian, Afghan

I must start with the first dog that I remember, that ‘King of Terriers,’ the Airedale. I was very young, I’m not sure that I was old enough to go to school. The only photograph (now lost) that I saw of my father was him kneeling on the front lawn with Punch. Punch was our Airedale with a simple attitude to cats – he hated them. Mind you he took it to extremes when he killed the landlord’s cat for being on his lawn.

Feisty was probably the best word to describe Joe, the Airedale Terrier I used to meet on walks in the North Yorkshire village where I live. He was sure that he was in charge. Like all Airedales Joe was happy to work with you but he never let you think he was working for you.

Joe - an Airedale Terrier

At home Joe often occupied a chair where he could see out of the window and bark at passers-by in the deep voice characteristic of his breed.

Joe on guard

His  bark was the best burglar alarm of all. In the middle of the night it would get you up - to dispose of any large spiders that had appeared. He had warned you of their presence so it was job done. You had to get rid of them.

If you didn’t know Joe that well you might think he was aggressive or bad tempered. Feisty may be the word for him. He was actually affectionate but on his own terms, and underneath all the feistiness he was a very sensitive soul. (You can see more about Joe at north-yorkshire-village-dogs-joe.

Airedales originated in the valley of the River Aire, near Leeds in England and were bred by crossing an Otterhound with a now extinct terrier. In WWI they carried messages in the trenches; Airedales were also one of the first breeds to be used as police dogs in Germany and Britain.

They were a favourite with Presidents of the USA. A statue of President Harding’s ‘Laddie Boy’ is in the Smithsonian Museum..

President Harding and Laddie Boy
(Press photo - National Photo Company Collection, Library of Congress)

  

Edgar Rice Burrough’s dog was appropriately named ‘Tarzan’ but I couldn’t possibly say why Bo Derek called hers ‘Harum Scarum’. If you have every wondered why John Wayne was nicknamed Duke – it was name of his Airedale; they were known as ‘Big Duke’ and ‘Little Duke’.

Today German Shepherd dogs are more well known as police dogs than the Airedale. Of course the German Shepherd and the Alsatian are the same breed with German Shepherd now the accepted name but I felt justified in including an ‘Alsatian’ in this post just so that I could show you this.

A young Alsatian (German Shepherd) takes a nap

I have never actually seen an Afghan Hound but have always thought it an elegant dog. A member of the Greyhound family, it’s said to have been one of the animals aboard Noah’s Ark

An Afghan Hound - Taziban Ozarq from Austria
(wikipedia commons; upload Zwoenitzer, de.wikipedia - CC BY-SA 3.0)

I would have taken them with me too.