Miss Nosy Parker, RA CD crossed the Rainbow Bridge this afternoon with the help of Vet Associates. Bless them – Dr. Brett Ellis came to my house to help her out. She had metastatic cancer and had gone downhill very quickly over the past few weeks. The time had come to let her go. She was quite a dog! I will never forget the first time I brought her to the dog training club and she jumped out of the crate in the car and knocked me flat in the parking lot. “Wait” was the first command I taught her!!! In spite of her tendency towards dog aggression, she was a wonderfully fun dog to train. I was so proud of her when she got her final two RA legs with a 100 and first place and a 98 in second place at our own trials. I had hoped that I might be able to go on to Rally Excellent if the rules got changed so that the honor exercise went away, but it was not to be.

Parker should have been listed in the Canine Partners program with the AKC, but she entered the world too soon, so she had an ILP as an Airedale instead, thanks I think to my friends in the Airedale Terrier Club of America. But she inspired me to help with the fight in the AKC to allow mixed breed dogs to compete in Companion Events.

Parker was also a world-class “varmint dog." I lost count of the number of critters she killed in my back yard, but I know that the list included three skunks! One of them met its demise while I was in Costa Rica one summer. The pet sitters sent me email about the event. They did several treatments to try and remove the skunk odor, but when I got back, it still lingered. I tried several others, but she really got sprayed and every time she got wet, the odor resurfaced.

I know that Parker charmed many club members with her beautiful eyes and wagging little stump of a tail. I will miss her terribly and am kind of a wreck right now.

Barbara Mann