We love to breed and show dogs, but are just as proud of our dogs that are great family members, obedience or performance dogs, or therapy dogs. The following is a note I received from Jackie Kurlich who has two of our dogs. I am so proud of what Jackie and Candle are dong to cheer up hospital patients!!! From Jackie Kurlich: “I wanted to share a story about one of your girls. Just to refresh your memory, Candle came from Lucy and Freddie and is turning 2 this March. I know a lot of emphasis is put on the show dogs but I think the true hero’s are the working dogs like Candle that are touching lives. She visits our local hospital each Thursday and we will soon be going into the school system and alternative schools to help at-risk kids. She wins “Best of Breed” in my eyes! I have to tell you about our Therapy Dog visit to the hospital today. Let me start by saying that lately I have been wondering about the “quality”, I guess you could say, of our visits lately. It just seemed like there wasn’t any substance to them. Yeah, everyone was thrilled to see and pet Candle. The nurses adored her. Everyone wanted to take her home with them and she gave all the patients a change from their boring hospital stay. I can’t say that there was anyone that didn’t want to see her, but I just kept thinking there must be more to this therapy dog stuff. It just didn’t seem like we were helping anyone Then I visited the 4th floor of the hospital today where patients were recovering from major surgery. As we entered the floor we got the usual reception from the nurses on the floor wanting to pet her. Then a lady came up and asked if we could visit her dad. I followed her to room 409 and there was this very ill, very weak man in the bed turned on his side with his eyes closed. She told her dad that he had a visitor and I picked Candle up and put her beside him on the bed and he got this complete look of joy in his eyes, wrapped his arms around her and kept saying “She’s such a baby”, “She’s such a baby” over and over. Whenever I put Candle on a hospital bed she just seems to know to be calm. With this gentleman she put her head on his chest and lay down and the only thing you could hear was him whispering to her and her tail thumping away on the bedJ. Normally we only stay in each room a couple of minutes. We stayed with this gentleman for about a half hour. As we were leaving the room his daughter told me that this was the first time in a long time she had seen her dad smile and that she had had a dream about a Therapy Dog coming to visit the night before. I’ll never think of our visits in the same way again. There’s always that one person we are meant to visit. If anyone is thinking about going into a Therapy Dog program, I strongly encourage it. Your cavalier could make a big difference in someone’s day…quite possibly at the end of their life…..” Thank you, Jackie and Candle. I will try harder to get to the local nursing homes for visits with our dogs. It is one of the things I keep putting off. We used to do it before life got so busy and I began to deal with my aging orthopedics!!! On another note, I am very involved in the local Humane Society as the vice president and public relations director. We live in a very poor county with lots of animal neglect and/or abuse. The Humane Society does our best to help save animals. Last week we were told that someone had moved out of their house leaving behind dogs, chickens, and of all things–emus. Yes, emus! The birds and dogs were starving; some of the chickens were frozen to the ground. We rescued all we could. Rattlebridge Farm is now the home to a flock of chickens and two rather tall big birds who do not share one brain cell between them. My husband has named the emus Imogene and Emil. I do so hope that naming does not mean that they will be staying!!!!

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