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IN THE BEGINNING . . .
I’m often asked how we got started raising and breeding Boston Terriers. The best answer and the short version simply is that it was a God thing. That is the only way to explain the way that such extreme things, that you could never imagine on your own, can fall into place with such ease and become such a fulfilling and important part of your life.
I’d never had an “indoor dog” as a child. I was raised in a family that believed that animals belonged outside. Also, I had a number of allergies that I was just sure would keep me from ever being able to have a dog or cat inside. My husband had been raised with large dogs, mostly police canines, but all at a very young age. So to put it mildly, we were a bit inexperienced when it came to dogs. We both had a love of animals and liked the idea of having pets, but, for the first few years of our marriage, rented a home that didn’t allow pets. About the same time that we began the work of building our current home, some new neighbors moved into my grandparents neighborhood. We were very close with my grandparents and visited them several times a week. One day while there, my grandmother talked my husband into going up to meet them. As with most older neighborhoods, my grandmother had a network of friends that liked to call each other regularly or stop by on the front porch to pass along the latest news about what was going on with each house in the area. She new my husband with his outgoing personality was just the one to get all the information she’d need from this new neighbor, so she sent him up. The biggest interest to everyone was why they had all those dogs. It turned out that he and his wife were breeders. They had Boston Terriers, his dogs, and Miniature Poodles, her dogs. Jeremy was very interested in all that was going on and really enjoyed spending time around the dogs. After a while, we all got to know each other. Sam and Pat would exchange vegetables over the fence with my grandparents from their backyard gardens and Jeremy and I would go up and visit with them from time to time when we’d go to visit my grandparents. This was our first experience with Bostons.
One evening, while I was still at my grandparents, Jeremy came back from visiting with Sam and had Skooter with him. Skooter was a tiny little Boston, only weighed 8 1/2 pounds at four years old, but he was all muscle and had a “big dog” attitude. I asked why he had him and he said that he was going to spend the night with us. Again, I asked why remembering that we were still living in the home that didn’t allow pets. Our home wasn’t finished yet. That night turned into years. We had Skooter home a week, (I’d gotten pretty used to doing everything with one arm since he was occupying the other one) and we went back to get Boots. I’d had my eye on her all summer when we’d visit because she’d always come to me and when Sam would come to get her to take her back to her cage, she’d growl at him. Of course, at the time, I thought it was a sign that she didn’t want to leave me (wow, what I’ve learned since then). Also, I loved the white mismark around her eyes. It made her look so much softer and gentler to me. This is what really began things. Part of the deal to take Boots was that we had to breed Boots and Skooter together, once Boots was old enough, so that Sam could get puppies from the litter. He had intended to use Boots and Skooter for breeding, so we had taken two of his breeding stock. We agreed. Boots had been with another puppy from a totally |
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