My daughter wanted a small dog for her 16th birthday. We found a litter of Cairn terrier puppies on line and agreed to go get one of them. We naively did not recognize what was really a puppy mill with various breeds of puppies running in and out of the barn. The Cairn mother looked awful - the sellers claimed she had lost most of hair from hormone imbalance but now I suspect she had been over bred. A small puppy came running out, truly the ugliest puppy I had ever seen. My daughters loved him. Then his father walked out and he was spectacular. Hamish came home and grew into a darling sweetie who loved our 6 year old Airedale, Max. 8 years later when Max died, Hamish grieved for months and our new Airedale never measured up to Max in Hamish's eyes. Hamish loved the beach but not the water. Loved to chase the ball but not to return to the thrower. Loved the dog park when he lived in NYC for 5 years with my daughter but did not like to play with the little dogs. He was great at flying under the seat with my daughter as she regularly flew home. A great mouser, we had no rodents ever while he was on patrol. He lived his last many years back in our house, barking at the yard crew, chasing the squirrels and sleeping snuggled up next to me. A month ago, at age 18 we had to let him go. I envision he is now playing with Max in doggy heaven and is still adorable and dear. We miss him a lot.

Anonymous
PORTLAND, OR