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[desoto_hia873]

There are a lot of dogs on our street. There used to be an old Irish Setter named Gus on our right, but he had to be put to sleep because of acute arthritis last summer. To our left is a black mixed breed, named (coincidentally) Bella. Next over to Other-Bella's left are the two enormous dogs that I thought were huskies, but which are in fact Native American Indian dogs. One more jump to the left finds another Toller by name of Chelsea. Her owners learned this week that we'd gotten Bella, and they came by last night with Chelsea to meet her. We live on a quiet dead-end street, so we let them off the leash to play. Other-Bella joined us, as did Hoover, a spaniel of some sort that Chelsea's mom is dogsitting for her sister. Chelsea is very toy-focussed, so she spent most of her time retrieving a thrown ball and barking at us to throw it again. My Bella currently fails at retrieving and was more interested in tussling with Other-Bella and making occasional grabs at Chelsea's ball as she scampered by.

Toller breeders are generally a fanatical lot, and they've built Tollerdata, a Toller genealogy database. Bella's page is here and Chelsea's here. You can trace Bella's roots right back to the mid-1950s when the breed became firmly established in (of all places) a Saskatchewan kennel.

The pedigrees of Bella and Chelsea also show a common ancestor: Westerlea Superstar At Berdia is Bella's great-grandmother and Chelsea's grandmother. Thanks to doyle_sb4 and fenchurche, who (unlike me) do not fail at genealogy, I can now say that Bella and Chelsea are first half-cousins, once removed.

This amuses me greatly. :-)

Comments

[kitmarlowescot2.livejournal.com]

My family has never had an animal with a real pedigree or papers. Though Morgan has papers that could have gotten him papers, but we didn't feel it was worth spending the money for a dog who is just a pet. And faithful companion. We aren't ever going to breed. And my grandfather and grandmother had a poodle puppy that died young, and since she died young. They went back to the breeder and got her mother. And they had her for a few years, until she died from heartworms. They did treat her, but this was 35 to 40 years ago, and the dog would go and hide the heartworm pills. So she died. The longest living dog they had was a unfixed Boxer mix named Rusty who probably spawned alot of puppies. But then was the 60's and back then you didn't neuter male dogs. Though they wished later on they had. Rusty lived to be 11 or 12 years old and he had to be put down because he devolped prostate cancer. After that my family always neutered male and female dogs.
Cats wise, they have been all mutts, or siamese mixes. My first siamese we got because a friend owned his uncle. So that is about as pedigree as we get. Otherwise just normal mutt cats with no history, just rescued or bought from the pet store. Even my pet rat was just a rat.

[kitmarlowescot2.livejournal.com]

Morgan is know in his lifetime coming up to be the second long living dog we have ever had. At eight years old, and he is watched like a hawk.
Cat wise I haven't been so lucky, not as bad as some. But the longest living cat we had was 18 years old. And she died 24 years ago. I have had three others die from various health problems from a brain tumor at four to IBS at nine, and fatty liver disease at 13.
Higgins might end up out living us all. Even though he is falling a part. Lilith I almost lost last year, but is doing better. She had liver problems from an infection I think. I think if it was cancer she still be losing weight, but she hasn't.