CHOPIN . . .

. . . . was brought into our local animal shelter just as our family was trying to decide if we liked any of the strays aleady there.

It wasn't that we disliked any of them, but we had gone to see 'Sonny', a black labrador female who had apparently been abused and for whom we felt a lot of sympathy. Although the newspaper announcement mentioned that she was very friendly with people we found that in fact she was frightened of them. The people in the shelter allowed us to take her to a small 'bonding' area where you can get to know the dog a bit, and they can get to know you. After about twenty minutes we realised the problem was that she had been left alone for long periods and wasn't used to interacting with humans - we couldn't make 'contact' with her at all.

At five years of age she had absolutely no idea what we expected of her, and although none of us wanted to leave her there the sad truth was that we were very apprehensive about the manner in which she didn't interact with the grandchildren very well.

Even though we didn't really want to leave without a dog, none of us felt that instant attachment we were looking for, and had just about convinced ourselves that another day might be a better day.

Then a family with two small children returned this six-week-old bundle of fluff that they had tried to adopt but suddenly decided they didn't want after all. Since this was November, my guess was that they realised he was going to be too big to look really cute by Christmas.

This little bundle was tired, and tried to sleep on my lap. Our grandchildren took turns holding him, and after nearly an hour with him and all the other dogs it was decided by all that Nanny and Grandad should have this one, despite his awkward gait and somewhat ungainly appearance.

But what to call him? Despite his small and cuddly appearance he had paws the size of Ike dollars, which is usually a sign of a fairly large dog. One of our kids rented the movie 'Beethoven' to let us know what we were in for - a very large slobbering hound who would probably not hestitate to move furniture if it was in his way.

Naming him Beethoven would have been a shade too corny, but as we all liked the movie 'Impromptu' we decided to call him Chopin.

So on November 23, 1992, we took Chopin home to live with us as part of our family.



It's a day we will never regret . . . . . .




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