Jimmy asked for pictures of my previous husky.  I thought I only had one but found these when I went looking.  Thank you so much for asking Jimmy - I had forgotten I had these.

This is my Sash with me - a very blurry picture from about 1972:
 
 

A slightly better one - she looks to be still a puppy, but she was never terribly large:
 
 

And this was Sonja - the pup who died after 2 months of trying to keep her alive:

 

And, as some of you may know, my mom raised and showed Old English Sheepdogs.  This is most likely Murghatroyd, her best stud and the family pet.  However, it is possibly Daisy, a bitch she acquired to add more "cobbiness" to her line.  I didn't know Daisy well, Murgh was my favorite, so I'll pretend it's him   .

 

Oops - just saw the back of the pic. It's Mopsy - one from my Mom's breeding. That breeding was the one that I went running around behind the mom, with my hands under back end of the Mom, puppy hanging down, hollering "Moooooommmmmm!!!!" First time bitch - first puppy, didn't have a clue

 

I'll post a few more with some history later - have to get to recycling before they close.

This one reminds me very much of Archer...Sasha and Archer both have a lot in common. Both, little devils. Both protective of family. But Sash used to talk up a storm



And another one of sweet Sonja...I don't know if she seemed so sweet because that was her innate personality or because she became so sick, so quickly. BUt, in the short time we had her, she was much more like Ami in that department, though she liked to cuddle.

Such sweet pictures Amy, they were all so beautiful. Sonja reminds me a lot of each of my dogs as a little puppy. And Sasha looks like a little sweetheart as well.

Old English Sheepdogs are so cool, what kind of personalities do they have?

Thank you for sharing Amy

Thanks for sharing Amy! They are all very sweet looking!

Artic_Wind wrote:

Such sweet pictures Amy, they were all so beautiful. Sonja reminds me a lot of each of my dogs as a little puppy. And Sasha looks like a little sweetheart as well.

Old English Sheepdogs are so cool, what kind of personalities do they have?

Thank you for sharing Amy

Thank you guys. Looking through these pics brought back lots of memories.

OES are great dogs, happy go lucky, like to be in with the family kind of dogs. They are herders - much to my youngest sister's chagrin. When she was little, Murgh would keep her right in the middle of the yard - if she tried to venture even 5 ft away from her spot, he would wrap his body around her and gently nudge her back to the spot he deemed appropriate. Never seemed to want to leave the property. I don't even remember walking them much...they just plodded around staying near the people-sheep

Sasha was one hot ticket After Sonja, who was so gentle, and never got into mischief, on our first night with her at home, we put her in the bathroom (in lieu of crating.) I thought I had puppy proofed. Nope - when we came back home, the toilet paper was all over the bathroom and in the tub (she was a 12 week old at the time - the vet recommended we get a slightly older pup and wait 6 months before getting another). She had climbed from the floor to the toilet to the vanity to the shelf - everything in the way was destroyed. The shower curtain was a has been.

And that was just the beginning - see the upholstery on the chair Sonja is sitting? Shredded. See the wallpaper on the wall in the same picture? All, I mean all in the whole 3 room apt. Pulled off the wall in huge sheets. Nothing was safe from that little, delightful monster. She got in the trash one day and got a tuna can stuck on her snout - hubby had opened the can most of the way, leaving the lid slightly attached, She got it and wedged the lid into her mouth - blood everywhere and we couldn't get it off. When we walked into the vet, she shook her head violently and the can came flying off...vet said the cuts were tiny, that mouth cuts bleed immensely and heal very quick. And that was just the first few months

Oh wow, Sasha had some spunk

She looks so sweet and innocent! I'm sure she was very sweet though.

When I was a kid, a neighbor a couple blocks over had an Old English Sheepdog, I always thought he was pretty cool but I never really got to meet him.

The last of my pics:

Sasha...in a friends back yard, again in the early 70's.  She was my first dog-training adventure and I had her trained to an off leash heel with decent recall.  She would "talk" to me on command.  One of my favorite stunts with her was to tap my chest, hold out my arms and she would jump up and I would catch her.  Not likely to happen with my 72 pound, 25" tall red head  

 

This Sonja in my lap - she never was high energy.  Our first battle was chronic diarhhea - vet said she had every worm known which we treated but she never really recovered.  She did love to cuddle though.

 

This last photo of her shows, I think, her slight unsteadiness on her feet - she was both weak, from the malnutrition (she couldn't keep food down and we were feeding her this prescription paste from a tube) and had neurological problems due to the distemper, which is what she was dx'd.  Our vet told us the breeder was known for disease problems - he was so compassionate.  Both towards Sonja and to us for blindly walking into such a horrible situation.  I would come home from work and she'd just be laying there, so weak, but would try to get up to see us...

 

In the end, we brought her in to be put down but she perked up so, the vet said he couldn't in good conscious do it.  We were going home for the holidays and he thought she shouldn't travel so he would board her for us...an hour or so after leaving, he called, frantically trying to reach us before we left...said now that he had her for a bit, he could see how very, very sick she was, that recovery was unlikely...that she probably had perked up a bit just because of the new surroundings.

I never want to go through that again.  She was a sweet little trooper and I can't write this without tears.

And my last pic of Sasha:  Notice how short the coat was - I'm not sure when the "plush" version of Siberian Husky appeared but this is how I remember them looking back in the early 70's.  Maybe just my warped memory.

This was taken at a summer camp in the Berkshires where we worked - this was our cabin. That was the summer of the porcupines. Ugh...the first one, she came running back, from a distance,looked like she had flowers all over her face. Nope. A snout full of porcupine quills. Took her to the vet at night, he gave her way to much anaeshetic (filled up a huge syringe, she was out a third of the way through...he just kept giving the rest to her even though he said "guess I didn't need that much") He told us she would wake up, but groggy in a couple of hours...still out mid-morning the next day. And a huge bill (for us anyway, my then husband was a student.) So what does Sash do A few days later, MORE porcupine quills. Well she wasn't going back to THAT vet and all he did besides anaesthetize her was pull them out with pliers. So I got a box of milk bones, a pair of pliers and made her sit. I grabbed a quill with the pliers, she jerked her head back, I held onto the pliers with the quill and out it came. She got a milk bone for being cooperative. Repeat about a dozen times until the quills were gone. ANd repeat several times that summer. Sash and I became quite accomplished with the above scenario Flat learning curve, I think



This gal was my constant, faithful compainion in a tumultuous time of life.  I will never forget her - she was so full of life, spit and vinegar...curious.  All that I think of when I think Siberian Husky.  From her I learned...never drive 2 hours with a meaty hambone in a bag in the back of a car with a Siberian Husky

Rest in peace, my sweet friends...you were all loved and are well remembered

Amy, thank you for sharing your beautiful past pups with us. Sonja had such a beautiful look to her, especially her mask. And Sasha, lol, you could just tell she was a trouble maker. Thanks again, I can imagine how hard it was to post these up.

thank you for sharing, Amy. all your past fur babies are very beautiful. Sonja looks so sweet and you had one heck of a fircraker, that Sasha.lol.

Amy,
I teared up reading this. It means so much that you would share these stories with us. They both were beautiful, but I do have a fondness for Sasha. I (obviously) have a special soft spot for the blacks, but also, your stories are so entertaining.
Thank you so much for sharing!

Beautiful tribute Amy, I got tears Thank you so much for sharing, I know it wasnt easy...one of the reasons I keep putting doing mine off.

Thank you, people This was a tough one, Sonja for the torture of watching a little pup slowly but irrevocably fail. If anyone thinks BYB is a good thing, this should make them think. And Sasha - she was my constant companion for 12 years - my older kids remember her...they look at Ami in bewilderment and say "doesn't look ANYTHING like Sasha...he's so...BIG...and FURRY

Amy this is a beautiful tribute. They are all beautiful dogs and fortunate to have had you in their lives.