Dalmatians

Having read every horse story in my local library I branched out to reading other animal stories. There was a mystery called The Green Poodle that interested me in poodles, but not enough to actually acquire one. I fell in love with Irish Setters after reading Big Red. But the book that really hooked me was 101 Dalmatians by Dodie Smith. I read it long before the Walt Disney movie and was enchanted by the dogs.

When I was about 16 I went to look at a horse and the man selling the horse had a litter of Dalmatian puppies. I didn't buy the horse, but I did buy one of the puppies. She had a patch over one eye so he sold her very cheap. Naturally I started out calling her Perdita after the dog in 101 Dalmatians. This got shortened to Dita and eventually became Dottie.

Unlike most people who acquire Dalmatians I had a life style that was suited to this active breed. At this time in my life I thought nothing of walking twelve miles to get to a stable where they would let me ride and then walk twelve miles home. This suited Dottie just fine. She loved the horses and as long as she was with me she didn't much care what we were doing. She learned all the basic commands a dog needs to know in minutes and accepted me as her leader from the moment I took her out of her kennel.

I had Dottie for fourteen years. She died while we were away on vacation and I didn't get another Dalmatian for seven years.

A man my husband worked with told him he had acquired a stray Dalmatian puppy. By this time, thanks to the movie, there were a lot of Dalmatians around and sometimes they got loose and traveled as they do in the movie. He asked if we'd like to have the dog because he already had three and did not want another one. My husband said we'd come see the dog.

The dog was a male with a patch over his eye. And the moment he saw us he was ready to go home with us. We took him home. I started calling him Lucky because his patch looked a bit like a four leaf clover.

It was as if I had Dottie back. He took the same position as she did and went everywhere with me. When I worked in the kitchen he lay in the same spot she always had.

I made an appointment with my vet to have him checked and vaccinated, but because the vet was off on vacation I had to wait a week. Four days after we brought him home he got sick. He was so sick that I rushed him fifty miles to a vet I knew in Austin.

Unfortunately Lucky had Parvo. When he died I cried and cried. I couldn't stop crying and was bewildered as to why I was so upset about a dog I'd only had a few days. Why I hadn't cried when Dottie died, so why was I doing it now?

When I had that thought I realized I was crying because I was mourning Dottie. I'd never truly let go of her which was why I hadn't gotten another Dalmatian.

When I got over the loss of Lucky and finished mourning Dottie I decided I would get another Dalmatian. I checked various sources for a rescue Dal and found two of them. They were males of approximately two years of age who'd been very lucky indeed. They were chasing some cows and rather that shoot them the rancher had loaded the two dogs in his stock trailer and brought them to the local humane society.

I made arrangements to go see the dogs and, since I needed a dog that would accept children I took my three year old daughter with me.

When the handler brought the two dogs out I couldn't quite decide which one to take. Then I noticed the one that had come up to us first was leery of Chels and inclined to shy away from her. The dog that had waited for an invitation to come up had no problem with her and I decided we'd take him.

When I finished making arrangements to have him neutered and vaccinated I went back into the kennel area. He immediately charged up to us and made it obvious we were his. The woman who was on duty that day commented that it was always the first one up that got adopted. I told her that, contrary to what she was seeing now, he had not been the first one to greet us.

Chels, having seen 101 Dalmatians many times decided he should be called Happy because he was so happy to see us. We had him for over fourteen years and he supplied me with many a story to entertain my friends.