2001 UPDATES
    I thought it time to do some cyber house cleaning!!  What a nite mare getting everything switched over, so please let me know if I missed a link.  And speaking of missing a link,  I'm missing my main Link.  Most of you knew Link's name better than mine.  He always greeted everyone at events and protected the Parlor and me where ever we traveled.  He came to me at a time in my life when I needed him the most, he was with me 24 and 7 and he traveled almost a half a million miles in the passenger seat of my van.  I got real good at steering and pouring a bowl of water for him as we traveled the interstates.  I could tell you lots of stories about Link and the special relationship that we had.  And I'm sure many of you could relate remembrances of Link to me.  It's been hard even thinking about announcing Link's loss to all of you.  For now, his page isn't changed.  Maybe I'll add a guest book, just for him, for all of you to tell me a story about him or a fur person you loved and lost.  I'm sure most of you have heard the story of how Linkage came to live with me and how my son named him.  I can still see Link rolling his eyes at me when I told it, as if to say---"Not again!!"  I couldn't announce Link's departure until I had something good to tell.  Because Link was rescued, I turned to finding another rescued fur person.  I had no idea that there were rescue organizations out there with available pets to adopt.  I needed another companion and protector with similar personality traits as Link.  Through the internet, I hooked up with a lady in St. Louis, who I poured out my heart and needs to.  She felt that she had a good match for me.  So on January 5, 2001, the 11th day of Christmas, and 66 long days since loosing Link, I traveled to St. Louis to meet Mac and bring him home with me.  Mac was named by his foster parents for the line in the McClintock movie "I thought you were dead".  He had been squashed into a tiny nite deposit crate at a rescue shelter in IL. last summer.  He had been in a dog fight (presumably used as bait) and he had heart worms.  His foster parents took good care of him and trained him with a few commands.  Since he has been with me, he has learned 5 more and will look me in the eyes.  He is helping me heal the void but he's gonna need a lot of discipline to be a good boy at events.  He still has a lot of puppy curiosity and lack of attention span in him, but we are working on that.  I'm teaching him his commands in English and French, so that he can show the children that if a "fur person" can learn a second language, so can they.  French, because he is part Great Pyrenees as Link was and the Pyrenees Mountains which they are named for are between France and Spain.  I'm gonna need everyone's help at events to get him in a routine and slowed down a bit.  I hope all of you will welcome him and give him a chance at filling the job that Link left for him.  Want to meet him??  I was so impressed with the rescue people that I built them a web site to help all of Mac's friends find homes.  Check it out at: http://www.starweb2000.com/pyrrescue
You can see his before and after pictures and read about him.  Thank-you to those who sent me emails of sympathy, snail mail cards of pet sympathy(I didn't know they sold such things) and to those who signed Link's guest book and wore the black and white ribbons at Prairie Grove, AR., the first event without having Link along.  That was a long lonely ride home.
 
The Duchess

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