Where I started... Daisy

One of my favorite blogs to read is Amanda's @ Many Muddy Paws. I know Amanda through agility, she is a great handler and teacher and someone I respect very much. I love her blog and feel like I am on there every day seeing if she has posted a new blog, today her blog was about where she started with her first dogs and left the challenge at the bottom to post about our firsts dogs...

My first dog that was actually mine and not a family pet was my cocker spaniel Daisy.

I was working at the SPCA when I met Daisy. I had gone into a back room to find leash's to take dogs out for a walk and I saw the sweetest blonde cocker spaniel baby in a kennel. I have always loved cocker spaniels so I climbed myself into the crate to meet her. Daisy immediately ran over to me and crawled onto my lap and we had a good snuggle. The vet working at the SPCA at that time came into the room and FREAKED out on me, I didn't notice the large red tag on the kennel stating she was a vicious dog. Turns out that morning on her entrance exam she had bitten the vet causing a few stitches. OOPS! The vet told me that she had been seized from her home do to abuse, she had some broken ribs and a some damage to her nose from being kicked in the face. My heart broke, she was just a bundle of love to me.

So I spent the next two weeks with her taking her out for walks and cuddling with her. One evening I got a phone call from the vet telling me she was on the euthanasia list for the next morning. I couldn't let this happen so I drove the 45 minute drive and brought her home. James was not pleased to say the least. He came home from work that night to a little pup (she was 4months) that he wasn't expecting. I promised to try and find her a new home, but we both knew that wasn't going to happen. Eventually he came around :o)

I worked so hard with Daisy, I didn't have the heart to take her to a groomer because of her past, I was scared of anyone else hurting her, so I learned to groom. I took her to work with me everyday, we worked on socializing her with people and dogs.

When we moved back to Medicine Hat she started to go hunting with my dad and brother, she was always a little nervous with Shane and he wanted to do something with her so bond. So I suggested agility. I loved going along to classes to watch and I watched Shane and Daisy become buddies.

Then when I was 22 weeks pregnant with Lexi, Daisy decided that she didn't want to play agility with Shane anymore, so I tried running her and we had a blast and Shane lost his agility buddy and I gained mine.

We had a lot of fun together, was our handling perfect? No, is my handling perfect now? NO! But boy did we have fun, I quickly got that little dog moved up to masters and we just loved to play together, when I was pregnant she always took it easy on me and kept to my pace. I ran into the vet she bit at a trial a few years later and she couldn't believe this was the same little dog that everyone told me there was no hope for.

I was worried to have Daisy with the kids, my mom and dad were prepared to take her to their home if she has issues when the kids were born, with her past it was a possibility and I didn't want to risk her unhappiness. But she LOVED her kids, from the moment Lexi came home she was in love, Daisy followed Lexi all over and slept where ever Lexi would be. When Bella was born my parents had to come pick up the dogs from the house in the middle of the night because of the emergency situation Bella was in. I was concerned this would have an affect on the dogs, as we were gone for two weeks with no warning, but again Daisy took to Bella right away.

I lost Daisy at the age of 7, she had massive allergy problems that shut down her body. We tried everything we could to fight them, in some ways I think I tried to much on her poor body because I couldn't stand the thought of being without her. She had gone from a 22lbs cocker spaniel to a 13lbs cocker spaniel in a very short time and there was nothing we could do to keep her heathly and not in constant irritation of itching, chewing and scratching. I didn't tell anyone of my decision to put her down, I knew people would try to talk me out of it, I called James just before they were about to give her the shot and he came to be with me. It was so hard to say good bye to her.

My plan had been to run Daisy in Regionals 2010 and then Nationals in Calgary. I had to put Daisy down in August of 2009. At Nationals I had 4 judges that had judged her in the past asking me where Daisy was and how Ava qualified for Nationals and Daisy didn't, it was hard to tell people she was gone, but I got to hear some great stories I had forgotten about her.

She wasn't perfect, but she was pretty darn close...She was such a good girl and told Ava all the secrets of how to handle mom on course, I am now waiting for Ava to pass them on to Blossom and Storm.


Daisy taught me about change, that no matter how bad things start out they can get better, you just need a new outlook on it. Her wiggly bum is what I remember the most, you could read Daisy like a book, when she was happy her bum wouldn't stop. My favorite agility memory with her was at a Go Dog Go trial in Lethbridge, there was always snow fence around the ring and coming around a turn she jumped the snow fence to see Lexi, gave her a kiss and jumped back over the snow fence and continued the course like nothing had happened. <3