Walking About with Dogs - Sepia Saturday 698

 

I've started looking through some photos that at some point in the past were sorted into envelopes by my father, to see if I find some of interest that I don't recognise from the family albums. A couple of weeks ago I picked up an envelope marked "cats and dogs". There were no cats in it, though - only some photos of the two dogs that my grandparents had back in my childhood (one at a time). I had meant to post these for last week's Sepia Saturday (which had a photo of a lady walking a cat). But I did not find the time that week to scan the photos. So I'll post them this week instead.  

Zepp 25.5.58

In my early childhood, i.e. in the 1950s, my grandparents Sally and Gustaf had a big collie named Zepp. I know they had him since some time in the early 50s (before I was born - which was 1955).  

Zepp and my grandfather Gustaf in 1953

This is how I chiefly remember him from my childhood: Lying along thresholds, stopping people (at least little people of my size) from getting in and out of rooms... In an older post (here) I've told the story that kept being repeated to me by my parents and grandparents throughout life:  On some occasion in my early childhood someone asked me what I thought of Zepp, and my answer was: "He's a good dog, but he's in the way!"

My grandmother Sally (right) and her sister Hildur (left) "walking about" with Zepp. 

Not preserved in any photo, but just in my own brain, is how my grandmother would take the opportunity to comb his long fur when they were out walking in the woods; and how she would tell me that birds would then use the fur to line their nests.

I'm not sure exactly when Zepp died (1959/60?) and when they got their next dog - but I found a clue written on the back of another photo: 

Sally and Max 10.7.60

I think this must be from when they went to pick up their next dog, Max (a Swedish Vallhund, or Västgötaspets) - or very shortly after. He was only a puppy when they got him. I seem to have a vague memory of me and my parents even have gone with them to the kennel for the occasion; but I can't find any photo proof of that in my own childhood album.

Max was a lot smaller than Zepp - but on the other hand a lot wilder, and he never grew out of a tiresome habit of always wanting to jump up on people (which I did not like - and I don't think I ever quite trusted him not to bite, either...)

 

No doubt he was good company for my grandmother for several years after my grandfather Gustaf died though (1969). This photo is from the 1970s, I can tell because it was after my grandfather's death that some renovations and modernisations to the house were done, including painting it yellow. Sally is sitting in the chair; I don't know who the woman sitting on the table is. (She looks vaguely familiar but I think a friend rather than a relative.) 

Linking to Sepia Saturday 698