My Father Was A Veterinarian.

Growing up, I lived on a ranch in southern Alberta, Canada.

The ranch was twenty miles west of Milk River. The roads were gravel and very dusty in the summertime. You could see cars coming for miles from our house on the Ranch. The air was so clear that sound carried as well. First you would hear a vehicle coming, and then you would see the dust flying as it came closer to our ranch site.

There was a regular occurrence that took place every few months.

We would hear a vehicle coming from the east. Then we would see the dust flying. The vehicle would come down the hill into the valley where we lived and stop at the end or our 1/4 mile long driveway.

Silence!

Then the vehicle would take off up the opposite side of the valley heading west toward Del Bonita.

Mom would look out the kitchen window and say, "In about 20 minutes we are going to have a new dog."

Sure enough, there would come sauntering up our driveway...another dog!

It was a regular occurrence. We always had at least two or three dogs running around the ranch.

Dad, the veterinarian, didn't have the heart to put them down. He would just examine them carefully, give them their kennel cough, parvo, rabies and vitamin A, B, C shots...whatever he thought they needed to be safe and healthy.

The dog was let loose to run with the rest of the pets we had.

As children, we loved all the wonderful pets and thoroughly enjoyed taking them with us everywhere we went, and the dogs seemed to love being with us as well.

Mom would cook up a huge roaster full of scrambled eggs, veggies, and special dog food every morning. The dogs loved this concoction, especially our Saint Bernard, Mike. We had to give him his own dish, because he would wolf down the lot leaving nothing for the other dogs.

Our dogs always had glossy coats and good fleshing over their ribs. Not too skinny, yet probably not show stock.

Most of them were the "Heinz 57" variety.

Those were great times we had with all the stray dogs that showed up at our place.

I always wondered why people would do that to their pets?

Food for thought.

I would love to interview some of you for my show and we could chat about your greatest experiences with your pets.

What about it?

Christine Till
The Marketing Mentress
www.marketingmentress.com