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(This story was written
shortly after the passing
of our beloved "adopted daughter"
Sara)
On October 27th, 2001, we
sadly said a sudden good-bye to our second bull Terrier, Wyke's
Whispering Sara, C.G.C. who had cancer. Our hearts are broken at
the loss of our beloved daughter, sister and companion. She is
now at the Rainbow Bridge frolicking with her brother Apollo, her
sister Rachel and Apollo's friend Whitey (Littleman). She passed
away peacefully in the arms of her mom and dad at the age of 12
years. Sara knew it was time to say good-bye, it was that look
in her eyes that told us so. Sara entered my life at the age of
4 months. She was the runt of her litter and fought with the
help of her breeders Percy and Eddie Hailstone to live. Thanks
to their care, I was able to adopt this young lady in April of
1989. She came home and immediately fitted right in with her
brother Apollo, another Bull Terrier and her sister
Rachel, a Terrier.
As an aside to this story, Sara just met her littermate brother,
Tully, who predeceased her by one month, this past May at our annual
Great Manitoba Dog Party.
We always do the breed display for the Bull Terriers and Boston
Terriers and the dogs absolutely love the thousands pf people who come
to visit them and find out about what great pets they are.
We hope next year she will be with us in spirit and we know many
people who will be asking where she is.
Back to the story.
Whereas the other two, Apollo and Rachel, were crazy, Sara was and
always has been for the most part a timid little lady, very laid back
and was like a ghost she was so quiet!
We attended obedience school, but that was really not her thing.
We did manage to get one leg towards her Companion Dog Degree,
but then between us we blew the other two we needed to get her
degree. After a long talk we decided to drop obedience and she
became a couch potato! However, one memorable moment in her life
was the day she met all the Winnipeg Jets. We were driving out
of the parking lot pf a local restaurant when the players were coming
out. They insisted we stop the car and that she get out and oh
my goodness, had I known the Jets were leaving Winnipeg for good, we
could have had her t-shirt signed by all the big name players.
Theythought she was wonderful. When they asked her name I told
them it was not Blue, but Sara and that she really liked football
better!
In the job I do I travel a lot and I used to take her with me and take
her into the office. She was always a favorite with our
clientele, even the ones who were mad at having to pay tickets, when
they saw her they forgot about their woes, paid their ticket and went
away happy. I wrote an article which was printed in our Justus
Newsletter on Sara's Day at the Morden Court Office and how she seemed
to have the innate capability of sensing when there was tension at the
front counter when irate clients came in and she always seemed to
diffuse the situation by drawing their attention away from business at
hand. I posed the question in this article, wondering if there
was a place for dogs at work in situations like this and also to
assist employees in helping them to relieve the stress in the jobs we
find ourselves in these days. I often took her to work with me
and she would sleep happily by my desk and I always loved to take a
minute or two to reach down and touch her or give her a kiss or go for
a quick walk. On amother occasion we took her camping. She
was not fond of the boat and fishing, but sure did love the campfires
and cookouts. We went for a walk one night and she was off leash as it
was late in the season and the campground was pretty well empty.
All of a sudden a baby started to cry, and Sara took off like a bat
running towards the tent where the baby was crying and no amount of
calling her back helped. Next thing we knew she was in the tent
and all of a sudden there was no crying! When we got to the tent
the people were petting her and the baby was watching her intently and
she was licking his tears away.
The people asked if they could keep her for awhile that night until
the baby went to sleep, and for the week we camped there she was their
babysitter!! When I got married in 1996, I now had to share her
with Bob and she loved him dearly. He could get her going with
her bully broncs and rips just by giving her loud pats on the sides,
boy did she perform for him. It was like a different dog and
when we got another Bull Terrier from the Hailstones, the two of them
used to race like crazy in the back yard. After losing Rachel
who was 12 at the time of her demise, we waited a whole year before
getting another Boston and when we did we brought home Bandit.
At the time Bandit was only 7 weeks old and weighed all of 3 ozs.
Well Sara didn't know what to make of this new addition so she stayed
in her house for nearly two weeks only coming out to go outside.
One day Bandit followed her back into her cage and sat here looking at
her and all of a sudden they were the best of friends and she began to
mother him, making sure he was bathed every night. She sure
didn't like having a bath or having her nails clipped and if you did
either you didn't see her for a couple of days!! That was her
way of expressing her disapproval over these indignities. Well
we added two more Bostons so now we had three Bostons and two
Bullies. Sara loved to run with the Bostons who were chasing
each other, but she always ran after them thinking she was in the game
and oh how she took care of each of them. They all got baths
each night, even Zyggee, thus we began to call her Mother Sara,
and really this combined with the two examples above backs up her
claim to fame of being a mother figure. We moved to Winnipeg
Beach permanently in 1999 and oh how she loved it here. She and
the Bostons would run and run until they dropped, Zyggee would join in
on occasion and it was fun when Zyggee would stalk Sara and pounce on
her and the race was on. We would sit there for hours and watch
them play.
Sara also lived for her Kong. We hope they have Kongs at the
Bridge for she sure loved her Kong But balls are great too and
so are tug toys!! However, Sara would grab hold her Kong or ball
and then come up and tease you, getting you to try and take it from
her, which of course with her set of teeth was impossible. On
occasion you got lucky and got it to throw, but not often. She
had a wonderful summer and fall this year playing with her sisters and
brothers and her Kong, and it was only a few weeks before she died
that a lump came up so suddenly out of no where and we discovered she
had cancer. The memory of her wonderful summer and fall is what
we carry with us now, a month after she passed away. On what
would have been her 12th birthday, Nov. 30th, 2001, we went down to
the Boardwalk to her plank and said happy birthday Mother Sara.
She and I are both Sagittarians and I sure found it hard to celebrate
my birthday this year without her.
Although we still have 3 Bostons and 1 Bull Terrier and a kitty cat,
the house seems empty with her passing. She was a true
character, a real tease and she loved the boys (dogs) even though most
of the ones she seemed to take a shine too had no interest in her at
all, but that did not deter her affections for them and she never gave
up trying when a new beau would come along! One night when we
were just coming to the beach for the weekend we arrived very late and
it was very dark. Sara jumped out of the car and un known to us
ran over to visit her boyfriend next door Coyote. We were
certainly frantic trying to find her until we realized where she
probably would be and sure enough we found her with Coyote and poor
Sara, Coyote wasn't the least bit interested in her!! She often
snuck over to visit with him, but with the same results from
Coyote!!! She was a treasure and a joy in our life right up to
the end, and we will never forget all her characteristics.
Rest in
peace Mother Sara, we miss you so badly.
If anyone would like to preserve her memory please make a donation in
her name either to In Memory of Pets, or to the Winnipeg Humane
Society.
If you hear the song
"What a Wonderful World" please think of Mother Sara as that
was certainly her outlook on life. She lived life to the
fullest.
Our deepest thanks to Dr. Moffatt and his staff for their care and
compassion" I don't know what we would ever do without them.
Until we meet again Sara. we send you all our love,
hugs and kisses from Mom, Dad, Zyggee,
Bandit, Whitney, Derek and Big Redd.
We know you are watching over us, being our guardian angel.
Your remembrances are all
around us and we will never ever forget. |
