1. Fifth Pick of the Litter2. Growing Up
3. Competition
4. In the Mountains
5. On the Beach
6. Buffy
7. Old Age
This is the story of a dog. Like most dog stories, it has an unhappy ending, as humans almost always outlive their canine companions. But there are many happy times before the end.
In 1993, I was 40 years old and decided it was time to have my first dog. Based on the characteristics of different breeds listed in a book from the library--I believe it was John Howe's Choosing the Right Dog--we decided to look at a breed we had never heard of called the Belgian Tervuren. As I recall, the book had muddy black-and-white photos that did not do the dogs justice, so it is amazing that it led us to Chip, the Wonder Dog.
We went to a few dog shows and visited with some Belgian breeders. At a dog show in Canby, Oregon, we happened to meet Elaine Nelson, who owned two Belgians, and was planning to acquire a puppy from an Alaska litter. She introduced us to Anna Lampley, from Eagle River, Alaska, who graciously agreed to let us have one of the other puppies.
Born on July 1, 1993, Chip and his brother Cruz arrived from Alaska at the Portland Airport on August 27.
Belgian Tervuren are working dogs, so we immediately put him to work in our garden digging holes.
Keeping pests out of the garden.
Harvesting leeks.
Carrying the harvest to the kitchen.
For most of his life, Chip seemed to prefer having a stick in his mouth when he was going anywhere.
Seriously, we began playing games. One early game was "Where's ..." Vickie would hide and I'd say, "Where's Vickie?" Chip would run and find her. Then I would hide. After he learned the names of other things, we could say, "Where's your ball?" or "Where's your frisbee?" Then we taught him other verbs like "Pick up," "Get," and "Take" as in "Take your ball to Vickie." Eventually, he knew between 200 and 300 words.
Soon after he arrived, we went to a social gathering of Tervurens where Chip became reacquainted with his brother Cruz. At this meeting, I overheard someone looking at Chip say to Elaine, "Fifth pick of the litter! That's scary." What she meant was, if the fifth pick was this good looking, think how good the first through fourth must be.
We didn't know that Chip was fifth pick of the litter, and we didn't care because we only wanted a friend, not a show dog. Cruz was the first pick and he eventually became an international champion. Most of Chip's litter mates also earned their AKC championships.
After the "Belgian Bash," we took a trip to the coast where Chip got to see the ocean for the first time. We would spend thousands of hours walking and running on the beach together.
I had a lot more hair in 1993, but Chip's future dignified persona was already apparent.
Next: Growing Up