29) A New Puppy
Before Saint had been run over we had been considering getting him a playmate. He was 7 years old but just like a young puppy. He always wanted to play with Mitzie but although she was only a few months older than him she was more sedate and much preferred to lie in the sun than to rush around like a lunatic. Saint would try hard to get her to play but if she did it would only be for a minute or two and then she would have had enough. We decided that with our much larger yard another large dog would not be too many. We made contact with the Doberman Club of Salisbury and went to one of their Sunday morning meetings. We were very impressed with the dogs there they were mostly very sociable. Some were a little aggressive and were tethered at a distance from the others but most of them got along like a house on fire. We knew that there was no way that we could introduce Saint to the club, he had never been used to mixing with other dogs and we thought it was best not to try to teach an old dog new tricks. We thought it would be good to have a well trained dog like the ones we saw that morning and made up our minds that we would train the next Doberman we got. We met a man at the club called John Page who’s bitch was due to whelp soon so we asked him to contact us when she did. Unfortunately poor Saint did not live to see the new puppy.
The children had never had a puppy of their own as both Saint and Mitzie were older than either of them so they were very excited about the whole thing. When the litter was born we went to choose our puppy. We chose her because she seemed to be the liveliest of the bunch and she was lovely and round and fat, she liked her food and made sure she got her fair share. The boys wanted to take her home immediately so we had to explain that she was not old enough to leave her mother yet and that we would come again in about six weeks to take her home. Meanwhile we could think of a name for her. I remember they were both very much into fairy tales at that time and we got suggestions like Snow White, Dumbo, Pinocchio Jiminy Cricket and Cinderella, we decided that if we shortened that to Cindy it was not too bad. So that is how she got her name.
Once she was about three months old and had had all her necessary injections we took her along to the Doberman Club each week and taught her to walk on a lead, to walk to heel, to sit, stay and all that sort of thing but the best thing we taught her was to socialize with other dogs, Saint had never done that. At the time the Club chairman was a man called Charles Brigs and his wife Pat was the Secretary/Treasurer. Other members of the committee were, Laurie Davenport, Arthur Burgess, Flo Todd, Jack Laurence, Ozzie Hosgood and Bill Prince, I wonder where they all are today. The main purpose of the club was hold championship shows for our dogs and the committee showed us how to present our dogs for the judges
The club met each week in the Salisbury Showgrounds; our clubhouse was not far from the clubhouse used by the Alsatian club. Alsatians were at that time a much more popular breed of dog than Dobermans and so there were many of them competing in the obedience trails at the dogs shows. With more competing there was obviously more winning. There were not many Dobermans and not many of them were doing obedience work so the Alsatians were winning far more trials than we were. But the members of the Doberman Club were usually very scornful of the Alsatians and professed that the only reason that they did so well was that Alsatians were weak willed dogs and could easily be brow beaten into doing what ever their owners wanted. Whereas the Doberman was of such superior intelligence that it would only do what it thought was worthwhile and they did not think that competing for a silly silver cup was worthwhile.
We entered Cindy into some of the breed shows, she was still a puppy and not ready to do obedience tests yet. We thought that she was the best looking puppy there but the judges were not in agreement with us. She won a couple of places but she was turning out to be a pretty large dog and the judges said she was a little big for the breed. Still we loved her and continued with the obedience work.
One of the reasons we had picked Cindy from the rest of the litter was that she had a good appetite and had the strength of character to make sure that she was not pushed out of the way in the rush for food with all the other pups. She continued to like her food all her life, in fact she was a bit of a thief when it came to food and had to be watched if food was left out. She would eat any thing. Most years at Easter the children would have an Easter bonnet parade at school. I remember one year Jonathan entered, he made a lovely hat out of paper Mache. It was shaped like a large Easter egg. He used something to mould the shape on; I think it was a hard hat of Jonny’s from his mining days. He built up the hat with layers of newspaper and paste; it took him quite a while. The plan was to let it dry for a few days and then paint it a chocolate brown and put a yellow ribbon round it. When he got up the next morning the half finished hat was nowhere to be found. We searched everywhere but could not find it. So he started the whole process all over again. While he was working on it Cindy tried to eat the bowl of paste that he was working with and we realised that we had found the thief. He had been using paste made with just flour and water and Cindy thought it was very good to eat.
She also liked to eat the toilet soap and would sneak into the bathroom and if a bar of soap had been left anywhere within her reach she would quickly snaffle it and run into the garden to eat it all up. I suppose it was the fat content of the soap that she liked. I spoke to the vet about it once. He listened very seriously as I told him about her wicked habit and said that she must have a deficiency in her diet. I was intrigued at the thought and asked what he thought the deficiency could be. He replied with a perfectly straight face “Toilet soap, of course” She liked the taste of soap so much that if she could not find a whole bar she would jump into the bath and lick all over the soap trays, taps and edges, anywhere that might taste of soap. One evening we were all sitting in the lounge watching something on the TV and we heard an almighty splash. The boys had forgotten to let out their bath water and Cindy had jumped into the bath for a bit of soap and had not realised that the bath was full of water. There was water all over the place and she was soaking wet. It was all so funny, we just laughed and laughed. Cindy did not like being laughed at and ran from one to the other barking at us and giving us little bites. When we managed to stifle our laughter she calmed down and just sat and looked at us, daring us to laugh again. Of course she looked so funny we had to start laughing again and she started barking and biting again. We all just laughed until our sides ached.
The children had never had a puppy of their own as both Saint and Mitzie were older than either of them so they were very excited about the whole thing. When the litter was born we went to choose our puppy. We chose her because she seemed to be the liveliest of the bunch and she was lovely and round and fat, she liked her food and made sure she got her fair share. The boys wanted to take her home immediately so we had to explain that she was not old enough to leave her mother yet and that we would come again in about six weeks to take her home. Meanwhile we could think of a name for her. I remember they were both very much into fairy tales at that time and we got suggestions like Snow White, Dumbo, Pinocchio Jiminy Cricket and Cinderella, we decided that if we shortened that to Cindy it was not too bad. So that is how she got her name.
Once she was about three months old and had had all her necessary injections we took her along to the Doberman Club each week and taught her to walk on a lead, to walk to heel, to sit, stay and all that sort of thing but the best thing we taught her was to socialize with other dogs, Saint had never done that. At the time the Club chairman was a man called Charles Brigs and his wife Pat was the Secretary/Treasurer. Other members of the committee were, Laurie Davenport, Arthur Burgess, Flo Todd, Jack Laurence, Ozzie Hosgood and Bill Prince, I wonder where they all are today. The main purpose of the club was hold championship shows for our dogs and the committee showed us how to present our dogs for the judges
The club met each week in the Salisbury Showgrounds; our clubhouse was not far from the clubhouse used by the Alsatian club. Alsatians were at that time a much more popular breed of dog than Dobermans and so there were many of them competing in the obedience trails at the dogs shows. With more competing there was obviously more winning. There were not many Dobermans and not many of them were doing obedience work so the Alsatians were winning far more trials than we were. But the members of the Doberman Club were usually very scornful of the Alsatians and professed that the only reason that they did so well was that Alsatians were weak willed dogs and could easily be brow beaten into doing what ever their owners wanted. Whereas the Doberman was of such superior intelligence that it would only do what it thought was worthwhile and they did not think that competing for a silly silver cup was worthwhile.
We entered Cindy into some of the breed shows, she was still a puppy and not ready to do obedience tests yet. We thought that she was the best looking puppy there but the judges were not in agreement with us. She won a couple of places but she was turning out to be a pretty large dog and the judges said she was a little big for the breed. Still we loved her and continued with the obedience work.
One of the reasons we had picked Cindy from the rest of the litter was that she had a good appetite and had the strength of character to make sure that she was not pushed out of the way in the rush for food with all the other pups. She continued to like her food all her life, in fact she was a bit of a thief when it came to food and had to be watched if food was left out. She would eat any thing. Most years at Easter the children would have an Easter bonnet parade at school. I remember one year Jonathan entered, he made a lovely hat out of paper Mache. It was shaped like a large Easter egg. He used something to mould the shape on; I think it was a hard hat of Jonny’s from his mining days. He built up the hat with layers of newspaper and paste; it took him quite a while. The plan was to let it dry for a few days and then paint it a chocolate brown and put a yellow ribbon round it. When he got up the next morning the half finished hat was nowhere to be found. We searched everywhere but could not find it. So he started the whole process all over again. While he was working on it Cindy tried to eat the bowl of paste that he was working with and we realised that we had found the thief. He had been using paste made with just flour and water and Cindy thought it was very good to eat.
She also liked to eat the toilet soap and would sneak into the bathroom and if a bar of soap had been left anywhere within her reach she would quickly snaffle it and run into the garden to eat it all up. I suppose it was the fat content of the soap that she liked. I spoke to the vet about it once. He listened very seriously as I told him about her wicked habit and said that she must have a deficiency in her diet. I was intrigued at the thought and asked what he thought the deficiency could be. He replied with a perfectly straight face “Toilet soap, of course” She liked the taste of soap so much that if she could not find a whole bar she would jump into the bath and lick all over the soap trays, taps and edges, anywhere that might taste of soap. One evening we were all sitting in the lounge watching something on the TV and we heard an almighty splash. The boys had forgotten to let out their bath water and Cindy had jumped into the bath for a bit of soap and had not realised that the bath was full of water. There was water all over the place and she was soaking wet. It was all so funny, we just laughed and laughed. Cindy did not like being laughed at and ran from one to the other barking at us and giving us little bites. When we managed to stifle our laughter she calmed down and just sat and looked at us, daring us to laugh again. Of course she looked so funny we had to start laughing again and she started barking and biting again. We all just laughed until our sides ached.
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