As I alluded to in a couple of earlier posts here in the  Presto Dog web site (here's one story; here's another story), we recently attended a huge dog show in Trenton, NJ. This annual event is a gathering of show dogs from around the country, best evidenced by the fact that palatial motor homes adorn the parking area with license plates from all over our beautiful country. But, I digress in that this tome concerns dogs, not luxury houses on wheels!

Around 12:30 p.m., we, defined as:

... sauntered over to Ring #5 where the Collies were due to appear. We were excited because a litter mate of Douglas, actually his sister (Serenade), was due in the ring. Would she be a winner on this beautiful Sunday afternoon?

After a few classes of dogs trooped through the ring and did their thing, our interested parties finally appeared. We settled down near the ring on our portable chaiirs, Shelties and Douglas at out feet. Then, In walked Serenade in all her beauty. At about a year of age she was already blossoming into a beautiful Collie:long, flowing coat, sparkling, intelligent eyes, attentive to her handler, etc.

As we watched Serenade in the ring going through her paces for the judge, we were surprised to see that Dougie's original owner, the woman who actually bred him, was the handler.  What a treat! We made up our minds we would visit with her aftershe was done showing Serenade. We were sitting near the side of the ring so she had to pass near us as she was showing Serenade's gait to the judge. As she briskly walked past, Dougie lifted his head and sniffed the air, undoudtedly getting the scent of his sister as she went by. We laughed at his actions and wondered how the heck he could remember his sister? But, then we thought, could he possibly remember his breeder, too?

Since she was the most beautiful dog in her class, of course Serenade won her competition. And when the handler went into the large tent where she had left Serenade's crate, we followed with our dogs to say hello. Dougie loped along, initially oblivious to where we were now leading him. But after a minute or so, as we approached his breeder, Dougie started to perk up, excitedly sniffing the air in earnest, looking allaround. Then, he was next to the breeder whom I had just greeted, telling her one of her pups was right behind her.

You would have thought two old friends who hadn't seen each other in years were gettin' re-acquainted! Dougie started licking her face, nuzzling his head up against her, while she hugged and kissed him, the two of them totally enjoying each other.

After a minute or so, Dougie started sniffing the air once again, left the breeder and led us a few feet away to where a man was sitting in a chair, watching the next Collie competition in the ring. Dougie jumped up on him, and we saw it was the husband of the breeder! The two of them proceeded to ger re-acquainted, thoroughly enjoying each other's company, also.

Even though we were now the real owners of Dougie, it made you heart glad to see the bond that existed between the original owners and our pup was never really broken, but was merely elongated and could be reaffirmed at any time.