Dogs of My High Pack: Tam Part Two

Here is Part one if you'd like to read that first. Here's my Buffy story if you'd like to read that too.

Oh boy have I been having fun finding photos!  I get a little bit sad here and there but then I find another one that makes me smile and glad Tam was in our lives.  She was such a character!

You can see in these two pics how much her fur on her face changed as she got older.  For some reason GWP puppies have a fuzzy bit on top of their nose, but as they mature all the fur ends up in their beard.   

She never really loved water as much as Buffy or your average Lab, but we did teach her to swim by swimming ourselves and coaxing her in, and if there were ducks to chase, she would go in anywhere.  Also, she always loved to cool her tummy in a nice muddy spot.

When Sally came to join our family as a 10 month old rehome, both Tam and Buffy loved her to bits and it seemed to help their own relationship too.  A happy Goldie in the house could make anyone more cheerful.  :)  I'll talk about Sally another time. It is a bit of a sad story.

Tam always wanted the next thing to happen.  I know they say dogs are happy in the moment but that wasn't true of Tam. With her it was always, "When is it dinner?"  "When are we walking?"  "What fun thing can we do next?"  She loved to be in the car and off somewhere. 

She loved social events where she could get lots of attention...

and beg for treats...

Once Rosie joined the family, we were once more five everywhere we went.  Buffy played with Rosie more than Tam did, because Tam was a bit annoyed that she had to share the love even more, but she was never mean to puppy Rosie.   

I was happy with more doggy company.  For me as far as dogs go, the more the merrier.  Luckily I draw the line at three, but I wouldn't, oh I wouldn't, if I didn't control myself.  I am happiest in a pack, even in a pack of dogs with demon red eyes.   :)

This is my all time fave pic of the three dogs together.   

Tam had to share a lot of the attention in those days. Andyroo and I had three dogs, mum had three dogs, and my sis had two, so family events were rather doggy! (And we loved it!) 

From left to right there are, in front, Rosie, Kelly, Jock, Buffy, and Kate, and the three behind are Tess, Freyja and Tam. All looking at a ball!

Tam still got the ball as much as she could.  She was a ball fiend all her life.  

As she got older she got quite woolly!

 

But she started to feel the heat in summer so we took to clipping her just for the hot months.  She looked like a Schnauzer!  It always a gave her a new lease of life and she'd be like a puppy again.

And of course she got painted quite a lot! This is the face you get if you tie a dog to the table leg to paint them: 

Unlike Buffy, Tam did age a lot as she got older. Her front feet bothered her, and then her back as well. We managed it as well as we could, but in the end we had to let her go. I think this is one of the last photos we have of her.  She looks a bit like a salty old sea-dog here but actually she was still as cheerful, noisy, grumpy, opinionated and snuggly as ever, it was her body that let her down. I do wonder if she too had Lyme.  She got tick bites that same day as Andrew and I. Perhaps that is what gave her the arthritis.  We'll never know.

 I like best to think of her as she was for all those years, full of life, fun and noise!

 

Goodbye Tammy, we will snuggle again one day!

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! 

  

Dogs of My High Pack: Buffy Part Two.

Oh, heck I have so many great pics of this dog.  One of the benefits of having a hubby who is a keen amateur photographer.  This is part one of my Buffy story, if you would like to go back and read that first.

So Buffy was full of life and energy, but Andrew were and I were very lively in those days as well.  Our two GWPs would have run us ragged otherwise.  We did so much together.  We did retrieving trials,

Obedience trials, and field trials.

We went to clicker training workshops and had so much fun training our dogs in positive ways.  We were never competing for prizes, we just really enjoyed doing stuff with our dogs together.  It would have been a rare week where we didn't go to water a few times,

And most days they had two walks and at least a bit of training.

We went camping and caravaning a lot.

          
And just generally had a fun time together.

She got painted quite lot too.

I have this last one right by the computer here.  It shows her in her softer moments just right.   

I re-found this little video on Youtube the other day, that I put together long ago.  It pretty much sums up Buffy.  She was such a funny dog!  She could do tricks a lot better than this, but our old dogs tend to do whatever suits them and that's fine by me. I'm glad I can watch this now and smile again!

The puppy in there is our Rosie who is now all grown up and a middle-aged lady. Hard to believe she was once so little!

Bye Buffy-boo, but not for forever. I'm hanging out to stroke those soft, soft ears again one day and tell you once again that you are the Lovingest! Until then, run free my funny girl!