A guest post from Connie Hart.
This is a most amazing story about Connie’s dogs and was sent to me as a guest post.
You will love it!
ooOOoo
A Dog Story
by Connie Hart, March 14th., 2023
Having been raised by my father from the age of three, I spent many hours sitting on his lap as he read to me. Often, as he read, I looked up at his face, and into his eyes. It was always a marvel to me. As an adult, I know it as heterochromia, or different colored eyes. He had one brown eye, and one blue.
This is a condition that is very rare in humans; only 1% have this. But it was something that I, as a child, loved about my father.
In dogs, heterochromia is more common, but still rare. It occurs 3.5% of the time in dogs. That being said, here is my story;
This is Bernie:
Bernie is 145 lbs. of pure love. He was a gift from a friend, after a tragic loss of two of my sweet dogs. I still had one old dog, Bo. But even he passed when Bernie was about a year old. So we took Bernie to the County Shelter, and let him pick out a new friend. Hence, Rosie came into our lives.
oooo
But two years later, unfortunately, we lost Rosie.
We moved after that, but Bernie was not to be alone. Believe it or not, the people who moved out of the house we bought, moved from Oregon to Arizona and left behind their dog, Endy. Endy was a sweet, old dog. When I inquired about him, the owners simply said, ‘Oh, he can fend for himself.”
I was horrified. I couldn’t believe it as I watched those people drive out, leaving Endy crying on the porch.
But we made it up to him. We loved him and played with him. He and Bernie became inseparable. But, alas, time and age forced a sad good-bye.
Again, we took Bernie to the County Shelter to pick out a new friend. With Bernie in the ‘meet and greet’ yard, I went through and picked out a handful of dogs I liked, first. One in particular, struck me. A Shepard/Pyrenees mix, with one blue eye and one brown.
One at a time, each dog was taken out to the yard to meet Bernie. Some, he barely even sniffed, some, he totally ignored. But when the heterochromatic dog was put in the yard, there was instant frolic!
Bernie had lost three of his besties and we didn’t want him to have to go through that again. This dog, Cassie, was young and vibrant, in so many ways. They romped and played while I went in to do the paperwork. While looking through the paperwork, I noticed her birthdate. November 23….
She and my beloved father have the same birthday!
ooOOoo
This is a lovely story.
For those that want more information on Heterochromia, I took from the Mount Sinai website the following:
Heterochromia is the presence of different colored eyes in the same person. Heterochromia in humans appears either as a hereditary trait unassociated with other disease, as a symptom of various syndromes or as the result of a trauma.
What an unusual, but pretty, condition in her face.
Thank you, Connie.
Learning from Dogs 