As the husband of a Show Dog breeder (Shetland Sheepdogs) for over 50 years I have developed a deep love and have compassion for ALL animals, especially dogs.
We breed dogs infrequently just to improve the bred, and have breed over 75 AKC Champions. We have found there is no money in dogs, except what we have put into them!

We have several ‘house dogs’ that are extremely close and dear to the both of us. Truly, the most difficult time is when we are called upon infrequently to act for God and ‘put down’ a lifelong pal that has become a child of ours. The decision to ‘put down’ a pet is very difficult to make. We concluded long ago that we would only do it when and if the dog was not going to improve in health and was in pain, or had such a poor quality of life that they wanted to go to a more peaceful and pain free environment. I pulled our last 15 year old champion out of the Potomac River twice, before we had him ‘put down’ because of his brain tumor that caused more and more seizures. During the last month of his life he was kept alive and relatively pain free only because the dosages of Phenobarbital we administered that kept him drugged-out. It was almost a pleasure to feel him completely relax in the arms of death’s release from his earthly problems. We know that we will meet him again together with the many other dogs that we have breed and owned that have gone to “Rainbow Bridge.” That will be the subject of my next message.

George from Maryland