Before we had Alfie and Ruby, there was Gerard. Gerard was a beautiful, gentle, loving, wonderful tricolour boy. He was my first sheltie, my first dog, and when he died a few years ago my heart just broke.
Alfie came into my life a week or so later, and while he helped to fill that emptiness - and now, almost three years on, I couldn't imagine being without him or his baby half-sister Ruby - I still missed Gerard terribly.
And then about a month ago - just after we'd brought Ruby home, while I was idly looking through her pedigree - I made a rather lovely little discovery. See, it seems that there's still a little piece of Gerard alive in this house after all, because it turns out that both of my dogs are distantly related through a common great-grandfather!
(An incidental, more dubious discovery - said great-grandfather was also Gerard's grandfather. Because apparently this dog was mated with his own daughter to produce Gerard's father. I'm not quite sure how inbred Gerard was, since neither of his parents are on Pedigree Lines, although it does make me wonder whether that has anything to do with the myriad health problems poor Gerard suffered from during his life. Of course, it could just have been the luck of the draw. And I still wouldn't have traded Gerard in for anything.)
Alfie came into my life a week or so later, and while he helped to fill that emptiness - and now, almost three years on, I couldn't imagine being without him or his baby half-sister Ruby - I still missed Gerard terribly.
And then about a month ago - just after we'd brought Ruby home, while I was idly looking through her pedigree - I made a rather lovely little discovery. See, it seems that there's still a little piece of Gerard alive in this house after all, because it turns out that both of my dogs are distantly related through a common great-grandfather!
(An incidental, more dubious discovery - said great-grandfather was also Gerard's grandfather. Because apparently this dog was mated with his own daughter to produce Gerard's father. I'm not quite sure how inbred Gerard was, since neither of his parents are on Pedigree Lines, although it does make me wonder whether that has anything to do with the myriad health problems poor Gerard suffered from during his life. Of course, it could just have been the luck of the draw. And I still wouldn't have traded Gerard in for anything.)
