Pet Profile #1 - Chani

I'm not tired of typing yet, so I thought I'd go ahead and post a profile of the apple of my eye, Chani. Chani was born in March of 2000 and found her way into our lives through a serendipitous series of events. For those of you who don't recognize the name, check of the characters in Frank Herbert's Dune.

Stephanie, my wife, and I were debating about getting a dog. I never had a dog in my life and Stephanie had one for a while as a young girl, but for all intents and purposes neither of us had any significant experience raising a dog. At the time we lived in Ohio and were bird hunters (upland and waterfowl) and had the pleasure of hunting with several very well-trained and personable dogs. We both came to be dog lovers and decided that we thought we wanted a hunter, but the cost of a purebred hunter was a big step to take for a couple that had never had a dog before.

One evening in 2000 I was driving home from work and saw a sign scrawled in black paint on a piece of scrap plywood in front of someone's house that said "Free Puppies". I called Stephanie and suggested she drive over and check them out. She was more hesitant to take the step into dog ownership than I was, but I convinced her to go visit them knowing that there are few that can resist a young puppy. Of course she fell in love and called me to come over immediately.

There was a litter of eight puppies of various colors, markings, and coat styles in a box in a fairly dingy basement. They were four weeks old and just starting to get rambunctious. Six had already been spoken for, and we made a snap decision to claim Chani. Her mother, Scruffy, was an unidentified mix described to us as Springer Spaniel and who knows what else. Her father's identity isn't known for certain, but there had a been a black lab hanging around the yard for a while so that seemed logical.

As Chani grew it was quite obvious from her physical features and behavior that she had some Labrador Retriever in her. I am fairly certain that she must have some Border Collie as well. She doesn't really favor the Springer side as much as her mother and one of her sisters adopted by a friend of ours did. The only real physical attributes that would hint at a Springer are her spots and her size. She's about 60 pounds and carries herself about like a Brittany or Springer Spaniel. She also has some tell-tale tiny spots that look an awful like what you'd see on a Spaniel. Her sister, Pepper, definitely has Springer Spaniel ears and much more typical markings, so I'm sure that Scruffy's humans were correct on that part of her heritage.

Chani is nine years old now and starting to slow down and show her age a little. She's still a fireball when she's in the mood, but has finally slowed down from the breakneck pace that she always seemed to function at during the first six or seven years of her life. Don't even get me started on the puppy days - I never a new a creature could have such unending, over the top energy. She has been and still is the best dog you could ask for - very intelligent, trainable (if a bit stubborn), loving, protective, and wonderful with friendly strangers and children of all shapes and sizes. The first eighteen months posed plenty of challenges, but the goods FAR outweighed the bads. Had our experience not been so good we may not have the array of critters that we do today.

Chani's favorite pastimes are definitely eating (she's food-obsessed if a dog ever was), playing ball, swimming, laying in the office with me, and sleeping in our bed. We've only had our kitten for about two months but she's taken a real shine to him, too. That whole thing is very funny as she used to be the stereotypical cat-hating dog. I mean cat-hating with every fiber of her being. It took her a couple of days to understand why in the world we would bring a cat into our house, but once she realized he was here to stay they made friends and now play together all the time.

She's the typical ball-crazy dog that isn't often seen without a ball when awake, and has been known to sleep with one in her mouth. As a puppy it was downright annoying at times, but she's learned to be more polite in her old age. If she can't find her ball it can be fairly traumatic. It's funny to watch her scour the house trying to figure out where she left it.

I'm sure all write more about her in the future but this is getting lengthy and I am now tired of typing. Suffice it to say she's my first four-legged pet and will always have a special place in my heart that no others, animal or human, can approach.