Ms. Sable, shorn, to eliminate water-formed mats in her fur, on March 30, 2016 Remarkably, it turns out -- at least, apparently, with dogs with a sable coat -- that the underlying body markings you'd expect to see underneath where the fur markings were are just not there...or are vanishingly subtle.  So Sable was left with a light tan veneer of undercoat, and that was it.  If it were not for the groomer's merciful leaving of her facial hair, where there had been no mats anyway, she would be pretty unrecognizable to we human beings! We'll be following Ms. Sable as she regrows her hair and continues her life with us, below.  She may look different temporarily, but she is still our affectionate, joyful, playful young Sable -- feeling definitely more comfortable with those many knobs and mats of congealed hair trimmed away -- and we will be looking forward to whatever's next! A month later, Sable was getting fuzzy, and her markings were starting to reappear. On May 6, on a sunny and warm day, a small group gathered at the former Berlin Inn, the Brooklyn House, for an evening dinner on the porch to celebrate Jane's birthday the previous day. Sable was there and enjoyed her share of everything. The meal began with a big ceasar salad for Jane, plus plates for sharing for Eric and Sable, because we'd discovered the last time Sable was there that she LOVES ceasar salad; it's the dressing we think (and Eric agrees with Sable about that). Even the lettuce; Sable can't get enough of it. So in this photo, Jane was starting to put some salad on Sable's plate, and she was awaiting it with anticipation. We also were celebrating our first "found her" day for Sable, since she had been with us just a couple of weeks over a year. She probably was about age two at this point. Sable shared the Eidelweiss Sausage dinner with Eric on this occasion. In justice to Sable, and to answer requests received, we will show you, below, a sequence showing her coat growing back.  To get to the final photo in this sequence took about three months; and at that point, in early July of 2016, she looked fairly close to how she had in the first place, although her hair was still growing of course.  While Drew's coat felt like a mink stole, Sable's coat feels more like wool, and is a little curly, which is why she tends towards hair mats after her weekly swims.  She has grown to look forward to those vigorous half-hour swims greatly, and by now she was in her second year of those.   We became assiduous in grooming her with multiple brushes and rakes and combs after each swim -- and although her coat was now close to as thick as it was before, and her markings had all reappeared, there remains no trace of mats at that point, and we are hoping to keep it that way. So, in nine photos taken over three months, Ms. Sable grows it all back, below..... Image:  As September arrived, Ms. Sable had grown all her hair back, and we were doing our best -- with multiple groomings each week, using a variety of tools -- to keep the hair mats at bay after each weekly swim.  Sable still does not want to be home alone, fearing we are leaving her if we just walk out the front door and close it, so we have company for her when we both have to be out, and we bring her along whenever we can.  She does not mind being left alone in the car for long periods, though, because she apparently is confident we will eventually return to the car! In comparing notes, we find the Jane's favorite photo of Sable so far is one she took shortly after we adopted her.  In fact, it's one that appears on the previous page of this website -- but since she liked it so much we enlarged it and cropped it to Sable's face, and here it is -- at right. Most of the time, Sable radiates joy and friendliness, and the other photo at lower right was taken by Jane on our front porch in August of 2016, and is pretty typical of that.  She's always smiling, always anxious to meet and greet anyone; but she has proven to be very well behaved when she accompies Eric to the two monthly evening meetings of SMILE -- the "Sellwood-Westmoreland Improvement League", the official neighborhood association where we live -- for which Eric has been Secretary for at least twenty years now.  Eric feels strange about bringing our dog to such a community meeting, but she seems to have built a fan club among members of the SMILE Board and with the frequent attenders -- and now if he arrives without her there are soft cries of disappointment.  She, of course, loves the attention; but during the meetings she just lies down and is quiet.  A very good girl! A pensive Sable from spring of 2015 Sable, with her usual bright and cheery attitude, on our front porch in August of 2016. Good thing Ms. Sable has grown her thick coat back...looks like her second winter with us will be colder and snowier than her first one...because we experienced our first snow on December 8th, and Sable seemed to enjoy strolling through it again this year -- gazing pensively into the underbrush from time to time! Then there was a second snow event, then Christmas...and then two more! Tuesday, January 10th, there was the possibility of a little snow in the forecast; but the first flakes were falling by 4 pm, and by 6 pm it was sticking everywhere, and the day dawned on the following morning with eight inches at Sable's house! Portland gets a snow like that once a decade or so, and often as a surprise -- like this time. Sable had a ball -- turns out deep powder snow is great fun for her, and she leaped, whirled, crouched, and explored in it. No more snow the rest of the week, but it didn't get above freezing till the following Sunday night, so she had days of walks in deep snow, slowly turning icy. Here is one of the few good photos we got during this time -- she rollcked too much in it for us to get an unblurred shot!! This is the house that Sable lives in, with her humans -- in eight inches of snow!! January 11, 2017. On the first day the temperature and weather would permit having Sunday Brunch on the front porch of the Brooklyn House (former Berlin Inn) in Portland -- January 29, 2017 -- Sable was there with Jane and Eric, as well as her friend Kimberly Koehler -- shown here sharing a bit of her brunch with the furry girl. Kimberly has been inquiring at the state level if there is not some way well-behaved dogs could obtain a permit for indoor dining at restaurants which choose to allow it. Dogs have dined with owners in Europe since time immemorial, but indoor dining with anything but a certified service dog, in American restaurants, is generally prohibited by state health boards. But if states could make a bit of money on permits, and if there are restaurants like the Brooklyn House which would like to, why not? The weather was nice in Portland on April 21, 2017 -- in fact, at 70 degrees (F), it was the warmest day of the year to date -- so we went back to Brooklyn House for dinner on the porch with Sable, to celebrate her second anniversary ("Found Her Day") with us. By now, she had learned how comfortable it is on the pad we bought for her two years ago for these concrete patio visits, and lay down precisely on it as soon as it was placed -- and she expectantly looked for the Caesar Salad and dinner she would be sharing. She had a great time. Of course. Weekly swim number 100! Ms. Sable, unable to get enough conventional exercise because of her damaged front left paw (in whatever mishap cost her three toes, early in her puppyhood), gets a weekly theraputic exercise swim -- and on June 13, 2017, she celebrated her 100th swim.  On the previous webpage you witnessed her first swim; over the two years that followed she'd become not only a fine natural swimmer, but a very competitive player of games in the water!  She frequently surprises her therapist with her lighting reactions.  In her vigorous thirty minutes in the pool at Paws Aquatics in Milwaukie, Oregon, not far from where we live, she and her therapist -- usually Halle, shown here, having fun with Sable -- start out by playing toss and retrieve, moving up to keep-away games, and climaxing with "Whippy Chicken", her favorite.  That's the water equivalent of the Whippy Ball game that Ms. Drew loved so much. You see all of that in the photo show of her 100th swim that follows, and you'll also see Mike Sullivan -- the family friend who was with Eric when we picked up Sable in Los Angeles and drove the 1,000 miles north back to Portland, in April, two years before -- who usually swims with Sable each week.  While Ms. Drew scored her Whippy Ball catches by requiring Eric to drag her up the steps to the back door before she would release the ball she'd caught for another round of the game, Sable has chosen instead to swim with her prize to Mike at the side of the pool, after which he takes the ball or toy or chicken from her and tosses it back into the water to retrieve again. Jane and Mike marked the 100th swim by obtaining a balloon and writing one hundred on it with a Sharpie Pen; Sable wore it on her collar as she entered the pool area, but we removed it before she walked into the water.  Enjoy this 10-photo sequence! Image:  You have just seen her dripping wet. Now, meet Ms. Sable dry, and enjoying our back yard on July 2, 2017! A very bittersweet night at the former Berlin Inn, now Brooklyn House But, between the 100th swim photos above, and the two backyard pictures you have just seen, Sable and Eric and Jane had a bittersweet night at the Brooklyn House, where Drew celebrated nearly every birthday in her 15+ years with us, and which was the first dining spot  where Sable evidently had ever had a spot at the table. We'll tell the story and have more photos on the next page.  CLICK ON THE PHOTO BELOW. Bad news at Brooklyn House

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