In
Memoriam
Ginger runs over the Bridge New
Years Eve 2006
The year 2007 began sadly when we received word that Ginger (about
who you will read in other places on this website) passed very early
across the Rainbow Bridge.
 Ginger’s
mom, Anna Seyller, finally came home from Iraq in the fall and was
discharged from the service. Plans
for Ginger’s future were her mother’s one solid tie to this
country the entire time she was in Iraq.
We talked on email several times a week about “Ginger’s
career” and made plans for her future.
Ginger was a beautiful brindle girl with blending and side
gate. She was a quarter
African. She was an
African daughter of Champion Ahmahr Nahr’s Turquoise Warrior S.C.
and granddaughter of Champion Ahmahr Nahr’s Sindar and Champion Ch
Dharian Breka’s Kmau Shakara J.C.
Her mother, Stormy, was a very pretty black and white bitch
owned by Renee Wise.
Ginger was co-bred by Renee, Michelle Smith, Barbour and
myself and was, to us, a stud-fee puppy out of Turk for whom we
found a wonderful home in the south with Anna.
We believed Anna had served her time and was about to be
released from military service when, whoops, along came another
final call up to Iraq just as Ginger was to begin her show and
performance career. Though
we did not know each other personally, Anna and I arranged for
Ginger to come live with us, and for me to supervise her career.
So while Anna was in Iraq, Ginger lived with us, at Ahmahr
Nahr stud or visited Jake in Calgary or spent time on the road with
Joe and Melissa Turner showing.
Ginger was always a little bit different than other pups we
had raised, primarily because neither Michelle nor I had raised her
and she did not have a reliable recall (despite my year’s worth of
efforts) - I could never get a reliable recall on this girl.
We have always joked that it was the result of her being bred
and raised as a puppy by a breeder of Cavalier King Charles’
Spaniels - it probably
confused her. At any
rate, Ginger thought a call to return was a signal to play; and so
it always was.
One of my first experiences with Ginger was at the four day
show cluster in Alamagordo the weekend after she arrived.
The day of her first showing, when I was grooming her, she
proceeded to go for a run on the football field in Alamagordo only
to be chased by myself and several terrier owners.
We finally got her back by enticing her into play.
Immediately following this debacle, a very shaken God-mom
(me) took her into the breed ring, went Best of Breed from the
classes over specials (including my own World Winner Puppy) and
eventually to a group placement that day.
Ginger lived up to the promise she showed that day in the
show ring, on the coursing field and in life.
We finished both her American Kennel Club and her Canadian
Kennel Club championships and earned one leg toward her junior
courser title (she
decided she had to go off and play with the Pharaoh hounds during
her second leg) and Ginger was ready for the second part of our
plan, to be bred to
Jake.
Unfortunately, she decided to come into season only briefly
and then two and a half months early.
Despite our trying to regulate the season with canine birth
control pills, we were not able to bring her timely back in.
After waiting several months, we decided when Anna had come
home, that we would send her home to spend time with her mom at her
new house, and bring her back when she went into season.
Anna tells me she was doing very well at home and it was as
if she had never been gone. She
remembered Anna and was delighted to see her.
Ginger was always a very sweet girl.
On New Year’s Eve, she and her mom went for a walk during
the fireworks and unfortunately, Ginger became frightened, slipped
her collar and ran off. Anna
was not able to find her and the next day while posting reward
posters, she was advised that she had been run over on the highway.
Such an unfortunate end to a year’s worth of planning and
praying. It is hard to
believe that we will not see Ginger again in this life but it seems
particularly true at this time of the year when I sort and catalog
the show photos and ribbons for the year, that Ginger is there,
taking her place with the other champions - always to be remembered
as such.
Ginger, may you always play in fields of clover on the
Rainbow Bridge.
Ginger was preceded in death by her mother in a similar
vehicular accident. We
will miss you, Ginny.
**********************************************
In 2005 Ahmahr Nahr’s Basenji
Stud lost two of its fine males, Ch. (AKC, CKC, FCM, SICALAM, FCPR)
Astarte’s Osiris died, as he neared age ten, in his sleep.
Si was in good health until the day of his death. Those of you who
knew him will remember the many years ago when he saved CH Dharian
Breka’s Kmau Shakara, JC, (the African Princess), from a coyote
attack, he was seriously injured, having an elbow chewed through
and his windpipe esophagus nearly severed. It is our theory that
since that time his lung and heart have not been as strong, as it
would otherwise have been. He nearly died and it was his own strong
will and the services of an excellent veterinary surgeon willing
to go the extra mile, with multiple blood transfusions and later
physical therapy (remember Si, the swimming dog), that saved him.
Suddenly he developed a kidney stone and the process of passing
it was too much for his heart so he went onto the rainbow bridge just
prior to our departure for the World Show in Argentina.
We also lost a young dog this year,
Ahmahr Nahr’s My Little Buddy. Buddy suffered an injury while
roughhousing with the adult dogs which resulted in an unstable fracture
of the hip. Despite advances of veterinary science, the vets were
unable to provide a workable remedy for Buddy’s problem to
allow him to have any quality of life. He decided that without that,
he preferred to join his uncle Si and their little cousin who died
at birth several years ago at the Rainbow Bridge, where their Auntie
(and Si’s long-time handler) Barbara Rouleau, I’m sure,
waited for them and is taking care of them now. Buddy was a puppy
out of Siete and Dancer and a granddog to Si.
This was very sad and a lesson to
all of us that we must watch young dogs at play during their puppy
year as injuries during the growing  cycle are sometimes all but
impossible to fully repair. We will miss them both.
Luckily, we had foresight after Si’s
earlier injury to see that he became a frozen semen bank member
and we have, for many years had Si saved in perpetuity, waiting
for the appropriate time to breed back into our line from this wonderful
champion. We believe that either 2006 or 2007 will be the time when
we first do this. And so, though he is not with us, he will always
be with us. This reminds me of the Ode to a Champion I first saw
at the time that Si attained his Canadian title; and it seems appropriate
to publish it now in their memory, so here it is:
What
is a Title?
Not just a brag, not just a stepping stone to a higher title.
Not just an adjunct to competitive scores,
A title is a tribute to the dog that bears it,
A way to honor the dog, an ultimate memorial.
It will remain, in record and in memory,
for about as long as anything in this world can remain.
Few Humans will do as well.
And though the dog itself doesn’t know or
care
that its achievements have been noted,
a title says many things in the world of humans, where
such things count.
A title says your dog was intelligent, adaptable and good-natured.
It says that your dog loved you enough to do the things that pleased
you, however crazy they may have sometimes seemed.
A title says you love your dog,
that you love to spend time with it because it is a good dog,
you believe in it enough to give it another chance when it failed,
and– that in the end your faith was justified.
A title proves your dog inspires you to that special relationship
enjoyed by so few; that in a world of disposable creatures,
this dog with a title was greatly loved and loved greatly in return.
And
when that dear, short life is over,
the title remains as a memorial of the finest kind,
the best you can give to a deserving friend,
volumes of praise in one small set of initials after the name.
A title is nothing less than LOVE and RESPECT
Given and received and permanently recorded.
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