> I know you'll believe me, Susan, when I say that I know how heavy-hearted
> you must feel at the end of the career of a dog like Lance. I have still
> not begun to get over the passing of Sepalluna, and knowing that your
> Lance was leaving you yesterday just somehow started the grieving up all
> over again for me. When it's a dog like 'Lluna, then somehow her ancestors
> like Dreama and Ditko, and collaterals like Sepalleopard and Surgut and
> Nyura all get mixed up in it as well, all taking turns pulling at one's
> heartstrings and memories. Heavy "emotional weather" indeed!

Jeffrey, Yup, and I think your dear Lluna was in our woods too yesterday, as
the sun broke out over Lance's grave just after we finished up his
burial...came out from behind a slate blue cloud just to bedazzle and warm
us before dark. Was thinking then how odd yet beautiful these moments
become when eternity itself seems to intersect time. Anyway, I put a flat
piece of slate with a little hunk of rose quartz atop my dear Lance's place,
and walked back to the farmhouse sad, but with such wonderment still.

>
> As a result I spent this morning surfing the web for ideas and
> inspiration, because I find it's time to add a Rainbow Bridge page to the
> SSSD website. There are so many fine and much-missed canine personalities
> who should be remembered, and a lot of good photos available to make their
> memories vivid . . .

YES, that's it - Personalities and deeds remembered, and how they altered
the universe for us. And as breeders; to experience how each of our kennel
founders' traits is beginning to echo down thru the generations now, remains
also remarkable 'living history', you might say. And I can only begin to
fathom how many ways, shapes & forms, Dreama and Ditko still 'speak' to you.
And Lluna too now. As you say, Seppala Kennels remains abundant with
stellar guides.

>
> The "authentic Seppalas" I. S. A. online database work continues. I now
> find that I underestimated the number of records considerably. Instead of
> five or six hundred, it's now looking like it will be more like 750,
> perhaps even a few more. As I get into the 1975 and later "post-Markovo"
> dogs the work becomes slower and more difficult, paradoxically, perhaps
> because there are no comprehensive collected listings for that period. The

Here you could also be speaking of the Chinook :)

> "Carded!" files of dogs up to 1940 and the 1976 "The Seppala Siberian"
> collection of studbook entries helped enormously with the early period.
> But for MANY relatively recent dogs, registration numbers, birthdates,
> owners, and descriptions are missing -- it's ridiculous, but for a large
> number of 1970s and 1980s dogs, all we know that is generally available is
> a name, a sire and a dam!

I wish I had sires and dams on some of the late '80's Chinooks still, and
heck, for a couple late '90's Chinooks too. Same boat again :)

>
> Of course the *Registry Database* itself remains a prime concern -- but
> with you, Susan, at the helm as Custodian of Records I feel sure that we
> are going to come up with a system that will be vastly superior to
> anything any of us have used before now. I can feel that in my bones, that
> the collective experience represented on the I. S. A. Board is going to
> bear immediate fruit in that way, if we work methodically and don't rush
> the process. I am thinking not only of Chinooks and Seppalas. I know we
> have other sleddog minority populations that need record-keeping services.
> Eventually we shall be doing this for half a dozen minority breeds at
> least. We owe it to those people to build carefully and for the long term.
> We've seen good examples recently of how NOT to go about it!

Thanks for your vote of confidence, it means a lot. And yes, I think we can
likely afford the time it will take to get a true archival system in place
that best integrates with both the registry dbase itself, as well as with
Alfirin/online dbases by extension. Legacy breeds source documents do seem
to come in more shapes and sizes than one might at first imagine. Atleast I
know our own collection remains fairly vast and varied for the Chinook. And
we've only been at this game of Chinook pedigree and archival collecting for
13 years now. I.S.A. will indeed 'speak volumes' then, when as you say,
others lend their own experience to the I.S.A. banner (and that's my honest
vision and belief, as well as a 'sales pitch':).

>
> So work away, Susan, both on your memorial web page and on those
> databases, and know that the preservation of vital information about dogs
> long passed over the Rainbow Bridge will be a precious legacy to the
> future, and a permanent monument to Lance.

Thanks again. You know, some of the most precious knowledge I hold on
certain Chinook dogs, was imparted to me by breeders' tales in person,
scritched over their kitchen tables on coffee stained napkins, etc., that I
then rushed home to make sense out of in our Compuped pedigree dbase, before
I couldn't recall or decipher the true import of what knowledge I had just
been blessed to have received. Just like how your life was probably never
the same since the day Bunty pointed out Ditko to you :) Oh, well, 'Wonders
never cease!', as my grandmother used to say... :-)

Susan Murray
I.S.A. Custodian of Records

>
> J. Jeffrey Bragg
> I. S. A. President and Chair
>