This started out being a long post, so I think I'll shorten it a bit.
When I got my first Sheltie, my wife being a big Lucy Ball fan wanted to name her Lucy. I'm not into celebrity worship and refused to call her that. A few days later I was thinking she was "cute as a button", and so I decided to name her Buttons. She was everything good you'd expect from a Sheltie, we developed a strong bond with each other. Without getting into details, she made me into what I am today. Much of this is in her diary on her website, so I'll just mention one funny story.
Shortly after getting Bows I found pee on the carpet. We were having trouble with Bows peeing on the carpet at night, so I don't remember why I thought Buttons was responsible for this one occurance. I found her looking out the sliding glass door. I said to her in a firm voice "did you pee pee on the carpet?". She turned toward me, put her head down and slowly came to me. She then sat down, leaned her body against my leg, and gave me her paw. I immediately melted and picked her up to hug her. She knew that she was a good girl when giving paw and I guess she figured I would be happy if she did it.
Buttons was a little over one year old when she was wearing us out with attempts to get us to play with her. I decided she needed a playmate. We found a nearby back yard breeder with one left. The owner brought her over and she and Buttons started playing immediately. Once we decided to buy her, I said "now what name will go with Buttons?". The breeder was half kidding when he said "Bows", but I said that was perfect, so we had our Buttons & Bows.
One Bows funny story. On almost a daily basis we were coming home and finding a chewed up pencil on the coffee table. I thought my step-son was the one doing it since he was so destructful. Because of all the problems I had with him I later installed a security camera in the livingroom. One time I was reviewing the tapes when the pencil mystery was solved. In it I saw Bows jump up on the table and grab the pencil sitting there. After that, I made sure no more pencils were left on that table.
Buttons death devastated me and Bows moped around the house depressed. After a couple weeks I thought maybe bringing in another Sheltie would help at least a little bit to heal the heart and provide Bows a new companion. I wanted to get one around the same age as Bows, I didn't think she'd do well with a young dog. We adopted Beamer from Sheltie rescue. We soon found out Beamer had some health issues. We had his teeth taken care of and we were told he had a heart murmur. Beamer also showed signs of being abused. He was hand shy and kept his distance. You couldn't go to him, you had to let him come to you. Once when we were trying to take a tick off of him I made a fast movement to get a better hold, he immediately dropped to the floor and shivered in fear. I also once petted him with my shoeless foot. He jumped up and ran into the other room. It took about six months for Beamer to really start trusting people. Bows never tried to play with him or be close to him or any other dog. We only had Beamer for 18 months before respiratory heart failure took him from us. I only wish we could have found him years earlier. He was a really good boy who deserved a much better life than I'm sure he had before we adopted him.
did the family know you were teaching the dog???
