A  few years passed before I owned another pet. I kicked up my heels, explored Australia on my GT550 motor bike and as I was not settled in any one place long enough, I was not justified to have any animal dependent on me.

This changed when I met and fell in love with my husband to be, Paul. Life was idyllic. It was time to add to the family. Our first addition was another grey tabby cat. We called her Macarra because of the big black M that she had in the middle of her head joining her two eyes together.

Macarra was around 5 months old when we decided to get a puppy. I can’t remember why we chose the breed German Shepherd; it was before the days of Inspector Rex. We started to go around the breeders to find the right puppy but we didn’t get past the first one. The kennel we went to was particular about what was going to happen with their puppies.  As registered breeders, they didn’t want any indiscriminate puppy breeding. However, the puppy we bought came from Champion stock and I have to admit we did have it in the back of our heads that we would one day like puppies.

When we brought Sasha home Macarra chose to become an outside cat for a couple of days, hissing and snarling at the new family member that had usurped her place in the house. After the initial unhappiness the two became good friends and I was besotted with my new best friend. We would go for long walks twice a day and once a week we would go to Frenchs Forest to the German Shepherd Dog League for training. Obedience training came easily to her and she progressed up the classes at a good rate. Paul started to get angry as I did the training and it was to me that Sasha looked. She followed me everywhere. We decided to get a second dog, one that he could train and have as his companion.  We had by this time met some people at dog training and we knew that they had a litter of puppies almost ready to go. A date was made to go and see them.