Best of Breed an Extraordinary Rose

By Sabine Shepherd

If you’re a dog lover this story will make you laugh, cry, and want to read more. “Best of Breed, an Extraordinary Rose” is an adult picture book that tells the story a little German Shepherd who changes her owner’s life forever. It’s an inspiring, interesting and heartwarming story of courage and love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sabine Shepherd
• Release date: Jan 27, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370863549

Sabine Shepherd

Sabine Shepherd was born in Wisconsin and spent most of her life there. She first found her love for writing in middle school study halls, where she switched between artistic doodles, and dark poetry. As time passed, life took over and she forgot her many poems and short stories she had started in high school. Instead, there was college, and work, and children to take care of. Now with the children grown, she has moved to Georgia and re-kindled that love. She finds she enjoys it tremendously, and hopes you will too.

Book preview

BEST of BREED

An Extraordinary Rose

Best of Breed

By:

Sabine Shepherd

Published by:

Sabine Shepherd

2017

Cover Art by:

pro_ebookcovers

I dedicate this story to the memory of my sweet baby girl Alva and my dear friend Rose. They changed my life and introduced me to the vigor, the challenge, the exhilaration and unconditional love of the German Shepherd Dog.

Rose has forever earned a place in my heart,

Alva will always own a piece of my soul.

Thank you both for improving my life from the first day I met you. Thank you for the smiles, the tears, the joys and the heartbreaks that made my life worth living.

Someday on the bridge, they will all come happily to the call;

Gammies Here!

~~To Grandma Rose and My Baby Girl Alva~~

There are friends who pretend to be friends, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Proverbs 18:24 TLB

My household always had dogs, I grew up with them all my life. There were dogs I don’t recall when I was quite young. Dogs like Butch, a white and brown Great Dane mix. My siblings have told stories about how Dad taught Butch to keep watch on the yard, and when us kids were outside playing, no one, came in our backyard.

They said Butch was like a tank and acted like we were his own little pup-kids pack. It worked great until the day Dad caught my brother in some mischief in the garage. He called him out to the step for a whopping. Had him laying across his knees and was telling him why he wasn’t allowed to handle and play with his tools. As Dad raised his hand to land the first blow, he heard a low, quiet rumbling behind him. Looking over his shoulder, he found Butch. The dog was standing there, quite now, his head lowered, legs taunt, feet planted. Dad told him Git Butch! and Butch walked away and lay down.

Again Dad turned his attention to my brother, telling him to hold still so it wouldn’t hurt as bad. He landed one well place palm on the boys backside as my brother yowled in pain. Then came another, and as the hand came up a third time, again came the low rumbling, this time louder.

Dad spun and shouted at Butch Go on! But this time Butch raised his head and stood planted. With a pulsated curl of his upper lip, he let show two rows of tight, white spikes to attend the rumble that crept from his throat.

My Dad let loose of my brother and got up slowly watching Butch. Trying to act as if nothing had happened he told my brother, Now go on, and stay out of my tools! Turning slowly while keeping eye contact with Butch, dad went into the house. It wasn’t long after that, Butch disappeared. Dad said he probably went chasing a rabbit and decided not to come home, but we all knew he had atoned for his guttural threat.

Another dog, Sport, came with the farmhouse we moved into when I was about six. He was a gigantic Black Lab that I later would lay across, slide on, and ride like a pony. His owner couldn’t take him when he left. and felt a young couple and five playmates were the perfect solution. So Sport remained Gardy's dog, but stayed at his cherished home, with a kind new family. Sport and I became wonderful buddies and inseparable playmates right away. We dug holes under the roots of Moms big lilac bush together and hunted Bumble Bees. I would explore his body for pump wood ticks and feed them back to him, so he could regain his blood. Best of all, he would take me across the meadows, a passenger on his stout back. Exploring, looking for butterflies and honeysuckle plants along the roadside. Even if I lost my way, Sport always knew where we were and how to get home.

One time, the two of us ruined Mom’s new Easter hat, by fiddling with it in the Spring rain. I have to say, I think it looked best on Sport. Oh, how I wish I had a picture. Its garish pink blossoms and mint green leaves dripped wet dye all over his ears and muzzle. Meeting with his lustrous black it nearly glowed, he was like a living Picasso painting during the Red Period. Sport was always ready to play with me, no matter what foolishness it involved.

Unfortunately, Sport got bored easy and would amuse himself by chasing cars. One Spring afternoon, he was running down a truck full of cattle, when he became mired in a rear tire. The forty-thousand-pound diesel seized onto his hind leg, crushing it upon contact. Then in an instant, it sucked him in plum to his chest, slamming his torso against the hubcap. There he was wrenched in rapidly and furiously stuffed under the fender to ride the circumference of the great wheel. Only to be blown back down to the blacktop, like a blood soaked rag. The truck driver didn’t even glance in his rearview mirror.

Dad found Sport on the roadside shortly after it took place. Incredibly, he was still alive and functioning above his chest. As soon as Sport heard Dad he whimpered and struggled in vain to pull himself up and greet him. He was dressed in blood, twisted from the breastbone down, and in ungodly pain.

Dad wrapped him in a blanket he got from the truck, crying and howling he brought him home. He took him to the barn where he fashioned him a bed of hay, gave him a big bowl of water and opened the blanket to examine him. He returned to the house to telephone Gardy, and get his .22 revolver.

Although he had gone to great measures to prevent us kids from seeing him. Sports cries and moans echoed up and down the valley floor like a phantom screaming the tale of an old comrade’s demise. The noise moved on the midday's mist through the foothills and timbers. Undoubtedly every stag, every squirrel, and fox had paused to take notice. Sport was an eternal element of those woods. At age of thirteen, he had presided over them and made them his own. It was only appropriate that he should pass over the bridge here.

Dad’s plan was to shoot Sport, as soon as he could reach his owner to tell him what had happened. He was very angry when the aged man informed him he could positively not shoot Sport. Gardie told Dad he would have a vet meet him at the farmhouse. If that Vet said Sport needed to be put down, it would be done mercifully.

Gardie arrived shortly after the call and remained in the barn with Sport for nearly three more hours, then the wretched whining finally stopped. The vet had not even arrived, the dog had suffered all that time and finally bleed out from his injuries. I never saw my Father so furious.

Then there was Pete as I called him. Pete was a silver and red Springer Spaniel that my father brought home as a pet. Pete’s master was planning to drown the six-week-old pup in a washtub. He told Dad he didn’t need no more dogs. I’m not positive why dad stopped him, I just know Pete was one of our gunnysack pups. That’s what Dad called them because he would force them in a gunnysack and carry them home. He felt if they couldn’t see where they were going, they wouldn’t be able to run back.

Pete used to jog alongside my tricycle when I rode. He was a bright little fellow and friendly, faithful and caring to everybody. Pete was with us for a few years and one day just walked off up into the wilds. Us kids watched and searched