For years I had begged my parents for a dog, not just any dog but a big, black labrador. I had read books
on labradors, dreamed of labradors and knew it was the only breed for me. Imagine my horror, when my new puppy, was not the
dog of my dreams! My Father came home with this black curly coated THING and I was expected to be over joyed. Poodles, I thought
were sissy dogs to dress up with ribbons. I wanted a real dog, a labrador. My parents warned me it was a Standard Poodle or
nothing because my younger brother had asthma.
After trying to ignore the THING for at least
a whole day, I named her Dusky. My respect for her came when she growled at my mother when she tried to persuade her to stay
in her bed while she vacuumed. This was no "Fru-Fru" dog.
Dusky was a great teacher.
She taught me how smart standard poodles were. She became my lion jumping through a hoop from dining room chair to dining
room chair. She learned French, as I was learning it at school. She was bi-lingual in commands she understood. She became
a husky and learned that Mush ment pull me along. Dusky learned never to run across a road, always stop and sit at the curb.
When I ran across a road, barely missed by a car, the driver shouted I should learn from my dog, who was seated safely, the
other side of the road, waiting for the command to cross.
Dusky taught me never to chase
after a puppy to catch them Always run in the opposite direction and they will run after you.
We
had spent many hours playing in an English park but when it was time to go home, Dusky didn't want her leash put on. For another
hour I tried to catch her to no avail. It started to get dark and I was tearful as I knew I had to leave her and go home,
to tell my parents I had lost the new dog. I had gone only a hundred yard when my puppy came hurtling to me. She had no intention
of being left behind.
Dusky and I went to training classes and she excelled at learning. She
won many obedience awards. She had two special tricks. One, she would sneeze to say please, for a treat and the other, the
very useful trick of carrying a shopping bag. As a young girl, I was often sent to the grocery store to pick up items. Dusky
would walk with me and would never carry the bag. On the return journey, when the bag was full and heavy, she would snatch
the handles from me and, at a trot, carry the bag home. She would carefully lift it up curbs, never letting it touch the ground.
When she got old, I insisted that I held one handle of the bag but she would always make me run to keep up with her. Like
most poodles, Dusky loved car rides and that was the only reason she allowed my future husband into my life. He would take
her for a front seat drive around the block before she would allow him to take me out! Dusky had one litter of puppies. She
had eight babies sired by a Vulcan dog. She was my introduction to the Vulcan kennels, then owned by Lady Ionides and Miss
Shirley Walne. When I visited the original kennels, in Buxted Park, I was sooo envious of a kennel maid there. Her name was
Ann Coppage, "Cambray"Ann Coppage, the future owner of the Vulcan kennels. Our visit to the Vulcan kennels gave
me by second standard poodle, Vulcan Merry "Quip", a white standard directly related to Polar our present white
poodle. All of the poodles I breed go back directly or indirectly to my first two dogs.
I
fell in love with silver poodles the first time I saw a puppy with its little silver nose and black body. At that time, in
the sixties, silvers were having a difficult time competing in the show ring against black, white or cream standards. I knew
I wanted to find a new silver line. I saw a litter advertised in the Exchange and Mart, a generl sales magazine. Within hours
I was on my way to see the single silver in the litter. In the early hours of the following day, I was in Totnes, Devon, knockiing
on the door of a decrepit farmhouse. There were five, five month old pups and their mother, living in an old cow shed
with barbed wire across the door. I wanted to rescue them all but I only had enough for two. I took the single silver and
a blue brother home with me. Corbacho Butterwell MacCarthy and his brother, Corbacho Butterwell MacCormack were very
sick puppies and found to have Leptospirosis, a disease often carried by rats. There terribly upset stomachs were not
improved by them accidently being locked in a room with my wedding cake, or the alcohol they were caught licking out of glasses
left under chairs at our reception! But they, Rod and I and an ancient cat started our life together.....to be continued
