Remembering Shumba and Panzer

My last post was about becoming enamored with crows.  So let me tell you a little about Shumba and her boy Panzer.  Oh, the dogs' names.... my ex lived in South Africa for a few years and the Shona word for lion was Shumba.  Actually that word is for a male lion but the name my ex wanted.  So for the boy I decided since Rotties are of German heritage wanted him to be a reference to a German tank... a Panzer. 

OMG, Panzer couldn't have been further from a German tank. He had a long inseam, lol, but didn't have a bad bone in his body and wasn't a bully.  His mom Shumba took care of him.

Here is Shumba with her 8 pups and she was an excellent mother.  We purchased her from a local breeder NOT a puppy mill.  We met the father and mother of Shumba, saw they were healthy and well behaved dogs in the lineage and made our choice for the most inquisitive pup from that litter.

See that pup to the far left almost on his back?  That would be Panzer. He was notorious for getting in a submissive position on his back and have to be carried in the house.  That is until he got too big to carry.

In the photo above mom and son (Panzer on left) are playing freely at the grounds around the ball fields.   When there was a game going on and a ball went outside the field the ball players knew us and would tell Shumba to get the ball.  That she would and would give it to the player across the fence.  But here I'm sure it was Panzer who wanted to play. If he couldn't get a ball he'd pick a wild flower and tease his mom with it to play, poor guy got stung by a bee there once too.  I know that hurt my boy.  He was a goofy sweet boy.

Goofy boy has his tongue sticking out.  He had an allergy which required medication around his eye at times.  That is what you see above, they are wet from running thru the wet ball field grass.

Notice the dogs are not on a leash but in a relaxed position.   Even when we took the dogs to the fields and let them run freely, if we clapped our hands twice they would come running to us and SIT!  We trained Shumba but Panzer learned by osmosis.  They were incredible dogs.

Above is another example of a pair of socialized and well behaved Rottweilers.  Again we clapped our hands twice and they returned immediately and sat.  I took this photo of my beauties which became the focus of a rug hooked later.

I'm a wide cut hooker but hooked the above rug in #3 for the dogs and couldn't stand the thought of hooking the background in #3 so hooked that in #5.  Just as soon as that was hung on my wall I pulled out some linen and drew another pattern and they would be a #8 cut!!!!

To give you a perspective, in the top narrow cut rug Shumba measures 15 1/2" tall and Panzer measures 17" tall.  While in the primitive rug Shumba measures 14" from foot to head and Panzer measures 15" from most bottom foot to top of head.  So that just goes to show you can get some detail with a wide cut.

Tomorrow I'm going to tell you more about the first crow rug named "Eat Crow".  There is a connection between that and Panzer.  Also there is a hooking technique included in that post as well.  So come back to visit.

Saundra