SCHIPPERKES

What exactly is a schipperke?  Well, it's a nearly-knee-high usually-black dog with generally no tail, horribly alert, incurably intelligent and very addictive.  Once you have one, you want more, and more, and more...until the crazy cat lady down the road seems tame in comparison.  They usually look something like this:

BUT... my schips are not modelled after the norm - 1 has a tail, one is gold and one is cream.  And yes, there are only 2 of them so far (there were 3 at a stage....), but that's just because there's no room to store any more!  Give me a farm and I would probably end up with an entire flock of the beasts.

So, let me introduce you to Didi - Alpha-male; and to Sid - semi-teenager and bottom-dog. Spinney, my lap-dog, passed away suddenly on 1 August 2004. She is very sorely missed.

Didi is a registered gold schipperke, pure-bred and with an attitude to match.  He is an intact male and we're still thinking about whether or not to get him into the breeding scene.  He was born in November, 1997.  We nearly lost him a while back to tick-bite-fever, but managed to pull him through with various treatments, one of which was a blood transfusion.  After his transfusion he totally changed personality, he's now so top of the heap it's scary! Once we'd sorted out his health issues, we found he'd had some previous training and knew the commands "heel", "sit", and "down". He doesn't always obey them, but wriggles with joy when he gets them right and is called a good dog! He's taken over lap-dog duties from the deceased Spinney, and is a bed-warmer at night.

Sid (Sidney - named after a dingo pup that stars in an Aussie kid's film) is the son of Didi and Spinney, and the first dog we got out of the bunch.  He's officially my son's dog. Unfortunately he's lost his position as top-dog to Didi and spends a lot of time avoiding being beaten down.  He prefers hiding out under the bed or being a foot-warmer to whomever is watching TV than making his presence felt.  However, he has the privileged position of sleeping on my son's bed at night, and has finally learnt not to make a nuisance of himself by parking on top of legs or feet, and refusing to budge.  Sid was born 09/09/1999, a birth-date really easy to remember.  Still deciding whether he'll remain intact or be fixed... but with current biting-and-fighting between the two males, it's pretty certain that when funds allow they'll both "have their water and lights cut off".

There is another cream/gold schip on our campus, Sid's brother, the farm manager's dog. His other brother, the maintenance guy's dog, was killed in a fight with another dog recently. Most of the dogs here have the run of the property.  My lot get to sit behind a fence and watch them, but do get walks up the mountain as often as we can manage.