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| Name: |
Zoey
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Age: |
Two years old
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| Gender: |
Female |
Breed: |
Belgian Sheepdog
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| Home: |
Pennsylvania, USA |
Let me begin by saying that Zoey is the reason my husband doesn't want me to watch the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show anymore. We share our home with two cats, Elvis, a stray tabby that one of my professors in college found and I was going to keep until I found him a good home (that was almost 10 years ago); Sydney, a Siamese that was dumped at a friend's farm; and Sadey, an alleged Beagle mix (who turned out to be a Shepherd-Collie mix) that I agreed to adopt from our local humane society because my husband has always been a "dog person" and was a concession to my being a "cat person." Sadey slowly wormed her way into my heart, and now I am as much of a "dog person" as I am a "cat person."
I have always had a soft spot for strays and animals left at humane societies, so I never saw myself buying a purebred when there were so many unfortunate animals that needed homes. But a few years ago, when I happened to be watching Westminster and the herding group was on, I was immediately drawn to the Belgian Sheepdog. I have no idea why, but that began my quest for trying to find information on the breed as well as a breeder. After numerous calls, I found a breeder, and an absolute wonderful person with whom I still keep in touch with to share stories about our "babies," in Ohio. My husband really thought I had lost it when we ended up driving three hours to get a Belgian puppy.
Information on Belgians is hard to find, and the information that I did find indicated that they are definitely not for the novice dog owner. They are stubborn, extremely intelligent, wary with strangers, and, as I soon came to realize, they will provide their own entertainment if you don't give them something to keep them occupied. This "entertainment" included chewing on throw rugs, pulling blinds off the kitchen door, and generally getting into anything and everything. So given all this, why would I nominate Zoey for Dog of the Day? Because she is the absolutely most loyal, loving, and trusting dog I could ever hope for.
True to her breed, she is not outgoing with strangers, but she would follow me to the ends of the earth. She constantly annoys the cats, trying to herd them around the dining room table until they jump somewhere to get away from her, and generally keeps me (and, reluctantly, my husband) laughing with her antics. She keeps Sadey (who is almost 7 years old) young with her games of tag around our fenced in yard and the two of them act like children. At two years of age, she is beginning to calm down, but she still has that little devilish gleam in her eyes. And she still gets into things she shouldn't.
But I wouldn't trade her for the world.
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