Dogs of My high Pack: Tam (Part One)

I'm not even sure I can capture what this dog was truly like. She was the funniest, sweetest, noisiest, grumbliest, snuggliest dog ever.  She was our first German Wirehaired Pointer.  

We had to let her go three days shy of her twelfth birthday due to a combination of back arthritis and pancreatitis.  That was in 2011 and I still miss her.  Not hard to do when you felt and heard her all day long!

Really, she was daddy's girl first and foremost... 

But if he wasn't home, she was happy enough with me, and we did many fun things together.

We don't really have any early puppy photos of her, because she actually belonged to my future (at the time) stepdad at first.  I do remember meeting her at eight weeks, and her sitting on my foot and looking up at me, and me thinking, "This dog is supposed to be mine!" but actually she only became ours at six months old when it became obvious she wasn't keen enough on water to be a top flight retrieving dog.  We were very happy about that!


This is her and mum's young Kate not long before Tam became ours. 

This is the one of the earliest pics I could find of her, with my niece who is now 22.  I have a very early one but do you think I can find it?  

I think she was not yet ours, or maybe just, when we took this photo, yet she was already a fan of Andrew.  :)

They played and played.

We belonged to a local dog obedience club then and they always enjoyed dressing up for fun nights.  Tam never minded costumes as long as she got lots of treats and attention for wearing them!

She had the most charming and funny face ever!

  All her life she liked to do this with tablecloths and curtains...

And all her life she liked to bark, trill, squeal, snort, growl, grumble, and bark some more. I've never owned such a noisy dog.  She announced our arrival anywhere, she announced our leaving anywhere, she commented on everything all day long.  Here she is commenting on a kong game with Buffy and young Rosie.

 She also liked to snuggle, or at least touch.  If you were with Tam, she was touching you, either on your lap, leaning on you, or resting her head on your knee or foot.  That or she was sitting up at the table with you!

       We went to field trials and training (which she was mad for, look at those crazy eyes!)...

We went to retrieving trials and training...

And later on I did obedience trials with her. We got our CD but by CDX her front feet were starting to bother her, and her tyro handler (me) kept making mistakes in the trials so we never titled at that level.  We had lot of fun training though, and every now and then we had a very good trial!  (Note prize sash held very carefully upside down! D'oh!)

 A year after Tam came to live with us, we got Buffy.  Tam accepted her but they were never really friends like Rosie and Tuppence are.  There was a lot of jealousy between them at times.  Poor Tam! She really wanted to be the only dog and have ALL the attention ALL the time!

Still, she had a lot of fun even once Buffy came along.

  

 

Anyway, more about Tam another time.  I have lots more photos!