Cinnamon is a purebred Irish Setter born at Kilkelly Kennels on April 22, 2000.Pat goes back a long way with Irish Setters. When she was a little girl, she saw two setters being walked and decided then and there, "Someday I'm going to have a dog like that." Several years later in 1973 she bought a setter puppy named Honey. Honey lived till 1987, and a few months after her death, Pat was asked if she would adopt a two-year old setter—Santa. Several months after Santa's death we began to look for another setter puppy.
We had our pick of the females in this litter, and it was hard to choose. Eventually we decided that Cinnamon was the most cuddly and affectionate of them all. As well as being pretty, she is, we think, quite intelligent. Her father, Riley, had a number of accomplishments in obedience training, and he is the only Irish Setter ever to qualify as a herding dog!
Cinnamon has turned out to be a very big girl. She is now as big as her father, who is big even for a male setter! Vic took her to obedience training, and she completed her basic training and advanced basic (off the leash) and earned her Canine Good Citizen Certificate.
She loves to chase and catch a ball or sometimes a frisbee and she is pretty good at picking it out of the air. She also likes to go swimming.
In spite of her high energy she proved to be a very good big sister with Mr. Spock when he was still a little puppy and played with him gently. After he was grown up, she behaved like any big sister with a bratty younger brother.
Cinnamon is a quirky dog. She is so obsessed with her her toys, tennis balls and hockey balls, that it makes us think of Gollum in Lord of the Rings with his Precious. She will often cram three balls into her mouth rather than leave one behind.
She is especially fond of children and is delighted when they want to play with her. Perhaps she has some frustrated maternal instincts; when a new foal was born here, she wanted to play with it and even offered it one of her balls.
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Mr. Spock is a purebred Labrador Retriever born on April 18, 2003. Vic had a few black part labs in his life before Lonesome Acres. Soon after he moved in with Pat, she bought him for his birthday a lovely Lab X Setter puppy we called Katy. Katy lived for almost 14 years and that established our Lonesome Acres tradition of having a red dog and a black dog. Spock was born right here in Oro-Medonte Township; his mother is a family pet (with good bloodlines) who lives on a farm several miles north of here on the same road. Somehow Pat and Vic got their wires crossed on the last two dogs: Vic, the lab guy, picked the Irish Setter ("the cuddliest girl in the litter") and Pat, the setter lady, picked the black lab ("the cute little guy with the white spot"). In addition, just as Katy was Vic's birthday dog, Spock is now Pat's birthday dog. Spock was ready to move to Lonesome Acres right on Pat's birthday, and his mother's owner sent him along with a big red ribbon around his neck. After just a few days we could tell that he is a very sweet affectionate puppy. He follows us closely and is always eager to lick a hand. He has been very good about adapting to his new home. He doesn't whine about being put in his cage when it's necessary, and from a very young age he got through the whole night without making a mess. He was fully house trained by 10 weeks. Maybe naming him Spock is promoting logical Vulcan behavior! Because of his enthusiastic welcomes—he wags his whole body— our stablegirl Lisa has designated Spock the official greeter of Lonesome Acres. At the age of 5 months Spock began obedience training with the Best Behaved Dog Academy, or as he prefers to call it, the Vulcan Academy of Science. Eventually he completed his basic obedience and his off-leash training. Spock is much more laid back than his namesake in Star Trek and he is often to be found snoozing on the couch or the bed in the house. However, he does have plenty of energy to follow the horses on the trail and is a powerful runner.
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After our old orange cat passed on at 17, we went for a year without a house cat but decided the household was not complete without one. Through a friend who is involved in cat rescue we adopted Cookie. He was already named and we saw no reason to change it. He is a very friendly cat with a very loud purr and a high energy level. He goes racing through the house sometimes at the wrong hours. His chief problem is that he is always knocking down small objects such as ballpoint pens, and then when Spock finds these "toys" on the floor he is likely to start chewing with his powerful jaws. Spock thinks that Cookie is a great pal, and Cookie comes up to him without any fear. Perhaps that's why Cookie seems fond of settling down beside the little Labrador statue in our bedroom. |
Crimmie has been our barn cat since 1995, a friendly, purring little black with one crumpled ear. In case you're wondering how she got that strange name, well, it's like this .... Pat picked her out from the litter of a friend's barn cat, and she was originally designated as a house cat. Unfortunately, she couldn't put her barn background behind her. In the first month of her probation many outraged cries were heard from the computer room: "That CRIMINAL KITTEN has pooped in my study again!" So Crimmie earned her name and was exiled to the barn. Even though she gets all the cat kibble she wants, she really earns her keep in the barn, being an expert mouser and (unfortunately) an expert birder.
Marble is a young black female with faint orange tortoise-shell markings. She showed up on her own in the summer of 1999, looked around and said, "Horses, that's really cool." Marble has learned the mousing trade from Crimmie, and now the two of them leave a plentiful supply of dead mice and moles for the dogs to play with--yuck! Marble really does seem to be intrigued by the horses. One day she was sitting on the shoulder of a cat-loving boarder who was holding her horse on a lead. Marble jumped onto the horse's back and started playing with his mane! Fortunately the horse is a calm old fellow who took it in stride.