Gemma

What can I say about my first Gordon Setter? She was a whirlwind from the day she came to me at eight weeks old. Wicked smart, Gemma was a whiz at obedience, but bored to tears with the breed ring. She had her father's look and her mother's nobility. I couldn't cry around her, she had to know why, she had to comfort me. Tough as nails with her son, there wasn't a man on this earth that she didn't flirt with, especially if he had a moustache. Her first words as a puppy were so comical that she earned the nickname, Wookie, which she answered to as readily as Gemma. She gave me Gavin and Yankee and Brianna and my one and only rosette from Westminster. She gave me near heart failure in the obedience ring with her creative alternatives to heeling.

With no training at all, she stepped into my Labrador's paws to visit a home for battered women to play with their children, enduring endless hugs and kisses with a wag of her tail. Gemma had four malignant breast tumors since age four and beat them all. But old age is something that she couldn't beat, although she resisted all the way.

What can I say about my first Gordon Setter? I love her, will always love her and will forever miss Gemma Marie.

" If we suffer so much in losing a dog after an acquaintance of ten or twelve years, what would it be if they were to live double that time?.............."

Sir Walter Scott