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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]

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.