August 16, 2005
zeita - the puppy of love
ON BETSY BUSH'S SECOND VISIT to my kennel at Oxford Station, Ontario (that was on the 17th of June, 1973) I was pretty shaken up. I had recognised a soul mate, the sort of person that one can expect to encounter only once in a lifetime. I didn't yet appreciate what that recognition actually meant, and wouldn't for a few weeks. But I had to do something to mark the recognition, and I felt a tiny bit guilty about having sold her XAIRE OF MARKOVO, who was light silver grey with bicolour eyes, when she had really wanted a dark-faced, blue-eyed Seppala so badly. The Z-litter puppies, which really filled the bill, had been too young to leave the kennel at the time of her first visit when Bets acquired Xaire.
We were in one of the log outbuildings where the Z litter were housed in a raised wire pen, when I made a clumsy grab for Betsy and tried to kiss her. She caught my wrist, spun me around, slammed my back against the wire of the pen and told me to act like I had some sense and not to make matters difficult for us. The puppies reached through the wire and pawed at my hears and pulled my hair while I listened to Betsy's lecture.
When she had finished, I turned, opened the pen's gate, reached in, extracted little blue-eyed demon ZEITA OF MARKOVO and pushed her into Bets' arms, saying, "take her, she's yours -- she's what you really wanted." Of course I had an argument on my hands, but Zeitsop was irresistable and, in the end, she flew to Saskatoon with Betsy LeSueur Bush. I soon received a letter thanking me deeply and sincerely for Zeita, "the puppy of love," containing the photo shown above, and recounting the exploits of Xaire and loving li'l Zeitsop.
Li'l Zeita's in the pedigree of my super-leader TONYA OF SEPPALA, her paternal great-grandam, and in the pedigree of my dear little girlfriend LIZAVETA OF SEPPALA one generation further back. Maybe that's where all that love comes from . . .
Posted by jjeffrey at August 16, 2005 08:44 PM