Call Name: Owen
8/20/1992 - 4/29/2002
Sire: As A Rule
Dam: P's Chocolate
Breeder: David Petzold
Owner: Beth Levine
you must be able
to do three things:
to love what is mortal;
to hold it
against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go.
- Mary Oliver
Owen was my pride and joy. He was my devoted companion and my first performance dog; he was my first field champion and my first obedience dog. He was an indescribably wonderful dog, polite and gentle in all encounters, and an inspiration to me. I wondered daily at the special combination of attributes that combined to shape his personality: serious yet playful and irreverently funny, exquisitely polite and gentle yet capable of sudden bursts of fierce athleticism. It was my dearest pleasure to share my life with him. Owen is the one I considered my foundation dog, although he was neutered young and never passed on his genes; in all other ways, he taught me much of what I know about working sighthounds, and laid the practical foundation, if not the genetic one, for all my future endeavors with these breeds I love.
A few of Owen's competitive accomplishments follow...
- AKC Companion Dog, title earned 7/25/97, from Novice A with scores in the mid-190s, three first placements, two second placements. High in Trial at the Portland Kennel Club 7/12/97 and Greyhound Club of America 7/23/97.
- AKC Companion Dog Excellent, title earned 7/1/2000, with scores in the low-190s and a first and a second placement.
- ASFA Field Champion, title earned 3/25/98, with multiple best of breed awards, including BOB at the ASFA trial associated with the 1997 GCA Western Specialty in Lompoc, CA, just two days after winning HIT.
- Major pointed (7 points, one 4 point major) towards AKC Field Championship, in four trials.
After he finished his CDX, Owen retired from all performance activities and spent his last years as a beloved companion relaxing on the couch, playing with his Whippet girls, racing around the property like a lunatic, and ruling the roost.
Owen died a few months shy of his 10th birthday of complications of osteosarcoma. He is reunited with his "sister" Sophie, who died of the same terrible disease just a month before. They were inseparable in life, and remain so in death. His sudden, unexpected death left a gaping hole in my heart and while I no longer have a Greyhound to grace my life, I remember the breed with great fondness and am grateful for everything they taught me.