Monica Knits

My husband asked me why I hadn't posted a photograph of Abby--our first dog. In this picture she is 15 years old, though she was 4 years old when we got her from Joe, the previous owner of our home. It was love at first sight. In appearance, she reminded us of the chocolate lab leader-dogs-in-training we saw on weekend walks.

She was an extremely energetic, happy dog and jogging partner who enriched our lives for 12 years. Excellent with children, at age 15 she courageously defended our neighbor's children from a threatening dog, much larger than her. She had to get stitches, but recovered quickly.

Abby considered it her duty, when given a new chew toy (she liked Kongs), to tear it apart as quickly as possibly--usually in just a few days.

Her nickname was "supervisor" dog because she would settle down a short distance from where you were working and watch. When we first got Abby, my husband kept losing gardening gloves and blamed the dog! Of course this reminded me of a famous dog Buddy who, it was joked, could conveniently be assigned blame for embarassing incidents! I didn't believe my husband, until we got a puppy, Heidi, to keep Abby company. Heidi started digging up buried treasure--gloves!

Abby was wonderful with Heidi--gentle, patient and playful. She taught her the house rules (potty training being the most important) and played hide-and-seek and other games with Heidi. She also taught Heidi which areas of the house were off-limits to dogs (furniture and certain rooms), how to chase rabbits from the vegetable garden, and how to discourage moles from moving in. The reason we don't have mole or shrew problems in our yard is because the dogs immediately dig up any tunnels originating from our neighbors--this discourages moles who can't rebuild as quickly as the dogs can destroy the tunnels.

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