I did not have dogs in my family because my Dad was really allergic. Cats were better for him, so we had those; never Siamese cats nor long-haired cats, all tabbies or self-coloured domestic shorthairs. I was, however, the family dog lover. Early pic of me shows a 3-4 year old me hugged right up next to a large bulldog type. My next door neighbours always used me to look after their dog, a collie cross bitch named Alfie, when they went away on vacations. I was a long distance runner in my teens and 20s (just 10K), and ran many training miles in the company of our street dog (looked after by a team of 4 families), a Malamute named Rory. Didn't have any more dogs until I married. He wanted a dog, picked a beagle, named Lady, from the Toronto pound, and we had her another 12-13 years. Never housetrained, unless you put her on a short tether at night. I never loved the dog, and when we moved up north, I always insisted that I have a "real dog" (i.e. large). Had an Irish Setter named Tara for a few years (car sick, stupid, attacked porcupine two years in a row, then got run over when she escaped her tether), then adopted Maggie, then a young dog, a purebred black lab. She was my dog and my kids best friend until I had to have her put down at age 14. Long fast forward through my return home to look after my Mom after Dad died. No dogs, far too many cats, at the worst, five, which is TOO MANY CATS. When I was alone and down to two cats, I adopted Lucy. Described as a collie cross (she has a bit of a longish nose with a white blaze on tan on the nose), she is nothing of the sort. I can't afford a DNA test, but she looks EXACTLY like a cross between an American Foxhound, and a husky type, probably a Spitz. Medium sized, probably 58 pounds at her best weight (have to keep her lean because of an early crush fracture of a hind leg). Enormously strong, in her youth she could regularly break 200 lb test chain. She will be 15 on Hallowe'en this year, and might be my last dog. I don't like small dogs, I am no longer strong enough for large dogs, were I to pass, my daughter would have to inherit a small dog. The big guy is more allergic to dogs than I, so a successor would have to be a wire-haired terrier type, or a poodle.
(we did make arrangements to adopt). Helios was our second dog. He was a retriever/collie cross. He was am SPCA mutt who adopted me when we met. He was a great dog. He came to us in August 2010 and died in 2020.
