March, or April, 1988 we took home our first puppy. A beautiful white puppy. We had gotten her from a breeder in a small town north of Seattle, Washington. Her breed was Kuvasz – a breed from Tibet, also from Hungary. We had visited the puppy a couple weeks prior to taking her home. What a cute puppy – but aren’t all puppies cute? The puppy was 7 weeks old when we took her home. She sat on my lap in the car and she could see out the windshield. We had learned earlier, before settling on this puppy that the Kuvasz are guard dogs with high intelligence and determination. That, along with her size, I was to learn was going to be a challenge for years to come! Because she was white and my favorite flower was a Calla Lily, we named her Calla.

We would often take Calla for walks to and through the parks. Once, when she was about 4 months old and we were walking her through a park, a small girl announced to her parents that that (pointing to my puppy) was a sheep-dog. Oddly enough a day or two later walking her through the same park an adult man said, “It’s a sheep” as we walked by him. Yeah, she’s white, with floppy white ears, but, she’s got this tail, ya know? Not anything like a sheep! Her chest, even though she was still a puppy, was deeper than that of a sheep. My husband would take her to the park and let her off her leash, then hide. Calla always found him. Once though, she hid. My husband became worried when he couldn’t find her right away and called for her. She came bounding out of some bushes! She learned quickly the game of hide ‘n seek. My husband learned quickly that he didn’t like the fact that Calla learned the game and played it well!

She was such a curious thing. Always sniffing. She’d sniff at the puff balls from dandelions and jump at them when they’d float off. She would also try to chase them. It was fun, but tiring as well. This “puppy” was strong and it wasn’t altogether unusual to find myself on my butt while taking her for a walk. If she found something to chase (squirrels were plentiful), she’d run after it. It could get real boring when she’d sniff (I swear) every blade of grass. Yanking on her leash just didn’t do what I was hoping it would. It was time to take her to obedience training.