Syn was a brown and white wavy-coated Portuguese Water Dog. Her breeder was Elaine Lyons Suter at Hunter PWDs in Michigan.

I started out not wanting a brown dog. MY dogs are black! Then I thought, stupid to pick a dog on colour. If my dog happened to be brown, that would be ok (eye roll). By the time I went to get her, I was hoping hoping hoping mine would be brown – and she was! What a fun ride! in 2014 she earned 8 titles in 2 months in 2 countries and 4 different venues. She “sailed” through her water work and was only defeated in her Master Water Dog quest by age and travel distances – she got 3 of the 5 legs she needed in 3 sweet tries, and then just couldn’t physically do it any more.

One thing you never want a carting dog to know is that the weight of the cart can defeat them. We practised so hard for her Draft Excellent title! Instead of the 60 pounds plus cart she’d be pulling in the test, we practised regularly with 80 pounds, on gravel and plowed fields. If she ever tried a hill that she couldn’t power up, I had a leash on the cart and I’d surreptitiously give her a little help. The last practise before we left on the 9-hour drive to the DDX test, she turned a little too sharply into hill she’d taken many times before so she didn’t quite have the speed to get up it, and I was complacently too far away to help. It slowly pulled her to a stop, and then dragged her backwards down to the bottom. While I was moaning and whining – now she knows a hill can beat her, there’s no point in even going to the test, a whole summer wasted – Syn trotted away from the hill with the cart, turned around, and went for the hill again, hitting it at a dead run this time. Halfway up she started to growl, and when she reached the top, she turned around, looked down, and gave it a triumphant rroooROOO! And passed the test with no problem at all.

If she could do it, she’d do it. If she had it, she gave it, cheerfully and willingly. She was the sort of honest dog you want along when “it” hit the fan. If I ever have another competition or Service Dog like her, I’ll be more than lucky.