From One To Eight
Hiya, some of you know me, I'm Sue Sutton of Olakhota Northern Inuit dogs. Ive been a 'doggy' person all my life, my mum bred Great Danes, and had Gordon Setters and English Toy Terriers, so we had a house full of dogs for ever, later I fell in love with all things sight hound and kept several Greyhounds and Lurchers, still some of my favourite breeds. I bred Border Terriers for around 10 years, I had the pleasure of showing one of my bitches, bred by me, at Crufts, she took 3rd place out of 25 or so dogs, i was well pleased.
One day, in my local paper, I saw an article about the Northern Inuit, my husband looked at it and the breed quite took his fancy, even though he's been a Bull breed man all of his life. So , stumped for a present for his birthday, I decided to enquire about the N.I.. I phoned the lady in afore mentioned article, a Mrs Julie Kelham, and was invited to her house to meet her dogs. Off we trotted, arrived at the house, were invited in and told to sit down, Julie left the room, and minutes later, the door exploded open and the most gorgeous dogs I had ever met burst into the room. Wow, it was so exciting, they didnt sit still long enough for me to tell the difference between them, they jumped all over us, but it didnt matter coz we were smitten.
Julie led the dogs back out of the room and made us a cuppa, she said 'well, what do you think of them', I answered 'have you got any pups'. Thats how quickly we became the owners of Deefen.
Although originally my present to Dai, my husband, Deef soon became my baby, god I loved that dog, he was a gentle giant, well ok, maybe not that gentle lol. His personality matched his looks, fantastic, he was good with the grandkids, great with our American Bulldog Gnash, totally ruined my garden, ate everything green insight, ate all the plants in the fishpond, ate the pond pump with the motor still running, tried and failed miserably to reduce the amount of fish in said pond and reduced a full sized catalogue to confetti, bits of which I'm sure I'm still finding years later. It didnt matter, I would forgive him anything, bless him. Deefen was an Apricot colour, maybe a bit too heavy in bone and his tail sometimes curled over, shock horror lol.
We attended the first N.I show in Oldham, mainly for the day out and the chance to meet other N.I and their owners, it was a great day, I think Deef came 4th or 5th in the open dog class, ha but we won dog most like its owner as we were both fat hairy and ginger lol. We totally enjoyed ourselves.
I lost Deef at the age of 3 from a blood clot on the brain, it was the worst day of my life, I was inconsolable for 2 weeks, couldnt stop crying, even now, when I look at his picture, it still brings a tear to my eye.
I had been in touch with Julie during Deef's brief illness, and she had told me about another N.I that she had rescued and was looking for a new home for, a 4 year old bitch called Timber, I had arranged for Julie to bring her to my house the day before I lost Deef, not knowing then that he wouldnt make it, so when she turned up the day after his death with the thinnest, straggliest looking dog I had ever seen, I didnt have the heart to turn her away.
Timber had been seriously abused, she was covered in scars and half starved, but she took to me straight away and within days, was my virtual shadow. She was a bit wary of kids and other dogs, but gradually came out of her shell, she is now great with kids, adores puppies and loves Sid, our staffy.
