CH Whiteshadow's Texas Mickey TD

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CH Whiteshadow’s Texas Mickey September 18, 1998 – March 2, 2006

I remember the day well that we got Mickey. Our breeder unfortunately had to downsize her kennel and we were the lucky recipients of Mickey. Our friend, Sheldon, picked him up from Edmonton and brought him to our house Valentine’s Day weekend. The best Valentine’s Day present ever, a 5 month old puppy, popped out of his little crate! What a little character!

We learned of Mickey’s affinity for cows when we drove up to the Yukon and Alaska that summer. We had stopped at a friend’s place overnight and the first thing Mickey did when he hopped out of the motorhome was to head straight for the cattle in a nearby pen. He herded them up lickety split without any fuss. When Mickey came back after Paul called him, I could hear Paul going “Bad boy!” out loud but under his breath, the next sentence was “Good boy! You herded those cows up real good!”

His cow relationship continued throughout his life. This past summer, we were up at our acreage and Mickey decided that he would go across the street to check out the cows over there. Paul’s biggest concern was that the neighbour would come out with a shotgun so he was calling Mickey like crazy. Mickey didn’t, so when he went to get him, Paul tore his jeans on the barbed wire fence and slipped a couple of times in the mud. All this time, Mickey was just two steps ahead of Paul………”Just visiting the cows, Dad!”

He was often out in our field, hanging out with the cows, going nose to nose with the calves. Nothing he liked better was his game of chase with the cows where he would try to get them to chase him, and if he succeeded, he had the biggest grin on his face! One morning, we let him out and he headed straight to the bull lying just outside our electric fence. Mickey got about a foot away from the bull and started barking in his face! The bull lifted his head to see what the commotion was about and promptly went back to grazing.

And how he loved water! Whenever we filled the dog pool, he was always there, sticking his face right in the stream of water, trying to bite it. The other thing he loved to do in the pool was to go snorkeling for carrots at the bottom. His head would be soaking wet but he was happy! You would often see him at the water bucket, check around to see if there was anyone looking and then promptly put both front feet into the bucket! Maybe he was trying to add more flavour! 

You could definitely tell when it was meal time at our house. As Mickey had a problem with his pancreas, we had to put powder on his food and wait for 10 minutes before serving. As soon as you got the kids’ bowls on the counter, Mickey would start whining. Yuki would snap at him a couple of times, as if to say “Will you hush up!”. When you finally served dinner, Mickey would start barking very loudly, start spinning around and jumping up and down. How he loved his meals! So much, that if somebody came to the door before the bowls came off the counters, all the dogs would rush outside to see who it was. Mickey would bark at whomever was at the door but still stayed in the kitchen to keep an eye on his food dish. He had to make sure that it wasn’t going anywhere without him!

We will desperately miss our sunny little boy. Thank you, Cheryl, for blessing us with this little man and giving us seven extraordinarily happy years with him.

Deb, Paul, Yuki, Tika, Maverick Mercedes & Cajun