pet connection

Wow, that was easy. We found our third cover dog within a couple of hours, with back-ups, thanks to our blog-readers and fans of Dr. Becker on Facebook.

The line-up in a jiff. First, the backstory …

After two days of shooting photos at the beautiful  Lakewood Animal Hospital in Coeur D’Alene, Idaho, for our  new book, “Your Dog: The Owner’s Manual” (coming out in Spring 2011),  photographer Joel Riner and his team from Quicksilver Commercial Photography put their heads together with Dr. B and decided that “on location” wasn’t going to work for the cover shot.

So we all brainstormed with the publisher, and came up with the concept of Dr. Becker with three dogs, a studio picture for the publisher’s art staff to use as a base to make their cover magic happen.

There was no way Dr. Becker’s beloved ball of fluff, Quixote, wasn’t going to be in the picture, so the “small dog” role was filled immediately. (This will be Quixote’s second cover appearance, actually, since the shot at right was on the cover of Veterinary Economics magazine recently.)

My friend Jill Gibbs isn’t too far away, over in Montana, and I knew she had the second dog we were looking for:  A well-bred, gorgeous and well-mannered Golden Retriever. Henry was bred in New Hampshire by another friend of mine, Stephanie Green. She is one of those great breeders we keep talking about here, the ones who are in it for the dogs, for the families who get her well-socialized puppies, and who is always there for them all no matter what.

And while I’m mentioning Steph, I have to dish a little, again to point out the difference between what good breeders do and why you should NEVER support any other kind if you’re looking to buy a puppy.

Last year, it turned out that a puppy Steph bred had a birth defect that’s usually fatal — nothing breeding related, just one of those sad freak things that happen because we’re living animals, not machines.  The family who had him when the problem was diagnosed tearfully decided to return him after everyone discussed all the options. The story for Bing would have ended quickly in most cases: If the source of the puppy hadn’t been there to take  the puppy back (with money refunded and more, of course), his family would have had to put him down because of the expense of a risky surgery with little guarantee. In many other cases even with a seller who could be found again, the puppy would have been taken back under terms of the contract, the puppy price (or part of it) refunded (or a “replacement puppy” offered instead) and the dog put down.

That’s the way a puppy business operates.

But that’s not how a good breeder does business — because it’s not a business at all to a good breeder. Stephanie and her husband, Craig, opted to fight the long odds of fixing Bing’s birth defect. That involved a great deal of tears, time and money, and a lot of top-notch work from the team at the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Bing is beating the odds. He survived high-risk surgery and recovery at Penn, and is living a pretty normal life now in his birthplace with Steph and Craig — and there he’ll remain for the rest of his life. No one knows how long he’ll live, but that’s an improvement over the initial prognosis. The Bingster is alive, and living a great life.

Handsome Henry is Bing’s brother, by the way. And that’s Henry at right, with some serious “snow zoomies” a couple months ago.

Henry’s folks –  Jill and her husband, Curtis –  work in law enforcement, and they have two other dogs, also retrievers, both flat-coats: Izzy and Navarre. Izzy has her own online social network, as the President for Life of the Bad Girls Club (of which my FayBee is a member, and McKenzie is a past member, retired to the Good Girls life).

Henry is not much more than a year old, but Jill’s a lifelong obedience trainer, so he’ll be a good boy on the set. Right, Henry? Right?

Which bring me to Cover Dog No. 3.

Regular reader Christopher Landauer of the Border Wars blog read my “help wanted post” yesterday, and knew he knew the dog we wanted. That dog is Ranger, at right, and Ranger is owned by yet another blogger, Carolynn Harwell, of the BCX4 blog. You gotta click over and see photos of Ranger celebrating his selection!  Ranger is from PNW Border Collie Rescue, by the way.

And there you have it! Three gorgeous, happy, healthy, well-loved and well-behaved dogs.

Folks, this is our dream team.

Now, the question is: Will our Dr. Becker be as well-behaved as these dogs? We’ll  have our Mikkel Becker Shannon blogging the cover shoot, so we’ll find out next week.

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