ShowSight Interviews
Cindy Cooke, Anstamm Scottish Terriers BY ALLAN REZNIK
1. Where did you
an aneurism and I was devastated. Like most pet owners back then, I went straight to the classified ads and called a local Scottie breeder, Eleanor Ryan. Eleanor was what many people would now call a “back- yard” breeder. To me, though, she was unfailingly kind and shared everything she knew about the breed. I was to dis- cover that there was much she didn’t know, but her errors came from ignorance, not malice. The litter was still nursing, but she let me come and visit until I was allowed to take him home at six weeks of age. His sire was a champion and his dam was a Doktor’s pet shop bitch. The first thing that stood out about “Bobby” was his bad temper. When I put a collar on him, he went nuts. He growled and showed his little teeth, biting furiously at his neck. Elea- nor assured me “that’s how Scotties act.” As he matured, grooming shop after grooming shop refused to take him. I joined a local Terrier club so I could learn to groom him myself. A very kind Wire Fox Terrier breeder, Fredda Roth- lein, took me under her wing and taught me to strip him. She also taught me that if I didn’t take charge of him, he was on his way to becoming dangerous. Fredda took me to a puppy match where my mean, ugly lit- tle dog, sporting a plaid show lead, won a ribbon from judge Harry Sebel. I was hooked. I showed Bobby for about a year without success. In the meantime, I sent a list of all the books ever writ- ten about Scottish Terriers to a “book finder” in New York City. His job was to prowl antique book stores and buy books requested by clients. I read every book thoroughly so I was a font of book learning when I first saw “Sadie.” Sadie was an 8-month-old bitch named Dunbar’s Southern Dancer, shown by Rick and Debbie Fowler. She took my breath away. She was sired by Miriam “Buffy” Stamm’s Ch. Anstamm Happy Ven- ture, then the breed’s leading sire. I announced to my friends in the Terrier club that I was going to buy a Happy Venture
grow up?
I grew up in the Air Force. My dad was a pilot and we moved constantly. The lon- gest place I lived in my childhood was four wonderful years in Germany. 2. Do you come from a doggy family? And if not, how did the inter- est in breeding and showing dogs begin? I grew up in a fam-
ily where everyone loved dogs, and we always had a fam- ily dog. Our first was a black-and-tan Dachshund named “Jake.” Jake came down with distemper—the vaccine was only discovered in1950—and, despite my mother’s round- the-clock nursing, he suffered such terrible neurological damage that he had to be euthanized. When we moved to Germany, my young parents spent money we didn’t have to ship our second Dachshund overseas to join us. (Uncle Sam didn’t pay for luxuries like that in 1955.) “Her- man” succumbed to a spinal issue and left our family temporarily dogless. Luckily, there was a rare childless couple in our squadron who had the first Miniature Schnauzer I had ever seen. “Scha- tze” was so smart I could phone Mrs. Holiday and she would put the phone to the dog’s ear. In response to my “Come here!” command over the phone, Schatze would run out of her apartment and over to ours for an afternoon of play. When we got back to America, my parents bought a Minia- ture Schnauzer from a classified ad in the newspaper. She was a great dog. I didn’t realize until decades later when I came across her registration certificate that she was a daughter of the great Miniature Schnauzer sire, Ch. Marwyck Pitt-Penn Pirate! When I was in law school, I put a deposit down on a Miniature Schnauzer puppy and waited for my new puppy to be old enough to come home. 3. Was it Scottish Terriers from the start for you, or were you involved in other breeds first? It never occurred to me to buy a Scottish Terrier. The first Scottie I gave any thought to belonged to a family who lived across the street from my feisty, little dog-loving grandmoth- er. She complained regularly about how “those people” let their puppy run loose. Shortly after my last visit to her, she called me and announced that she was sending the little dog to me. Apparently, her neighbor grew tired of her bringing the dog home almost daily and the accompanying lectures on proper dog care. “If you like the damned dog so much, Mrs. Hall, you can keep him,” were the owner’s last words to her before slamming the door. The dog arrived on a flight from Tulsa and I had a prob- lem. I thought he was the ugliest thing I had ever seen, plus I really wanted that Schnauzer puppy. Luckily, the Schnauzer lady kindly returned my deposit, and the little Scottie began to worm his way into my heart. Sadly, he died suddenly from
GCh. Anstamm Wild West going BOS to Sadie at Montgomery.
174 • S how S ight M agazine , M ay 2018
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