Reagan, The Airedale, Turns 12

As I've mentioned many times on this blog...I have been raising Airedales, or at least have had them living with us now for 36 years. We purchased our first pure bred Airedale, Rags, back in the fall of 1974, a couple of years before we were married...then along came Max about a year later. Those 2 dogs were our "family" for the rest of the 1970s until Anissa was born in 1979.

We moved back to Ohio in 1980...and they, along with our "mutts" Jenny and her daughter Dixie, became farm dogs for the rest of their lives....Rags lived until a month short of her 12 birthday, passing away in the summer of 1985...Max was our longest living Airedale to date, making it past the 12 1/2 year mark, and fathering over 150 Registered Pups over the years. Our current, and probably last Airedale, Reagan, makes the 2nd of all the Airedales we have raised to make it a dozen years. Given her alergies and steroid use to combat same, we never thought she would be with us this long...but the old girl is hanging in, and although she probably won't see birthday #13...she still has some play in her, in addition to her 20 hours of sleep per day...doesn't see as well as she used to, can't catch the neighborhood cats, and can't hear much....but she doesn't seem to suffer, or mind the coming of old age.

She will probably be our last...too tough to lose them, and with retirement for me, and at hand for Patricia in a few years, I'm not sure we are up to raising anymore large dogs...but you never know. And I never say never...

back later>>>>

Photo-Reagan as a youngster in 1999...me and Rags at Higgins Lake, Michigan in 1975...An older Reagan last fall(2009), and House's Black Max(Max to us) as a pup in early 1976... he was our longest living, and most productive, pup producing wise, Airedale to date.