My Story and why I have this website...
I was born in Twin Falls Idaho. My grandparents had a dairy farm, where they raised their hay, grain, and just about everything else. My Grandpa trained Percherons for the Heinz Company on that farm. As a very small child, I spent most of my time in the barn or the fields with my Grandpa. In my eyes, he knew everything about everything. I learned to hand milk cows, helped pull calves, dock sheep tails, harness those huge horses and even drive them. By age 5, I could drive the team to pick the hay up out of the fields. I learned about every animal on the farm from the man that made it all work.
My Grandma had the biggest garden I think I have ever seen. She provided all the vegetables for the 8 Aunts and Uncles, 3 cousins, my Mom, and I, all living in that old farmhouse. She kept a huge flock of chickens and geese for eggs and meat. The beef and lamb came from the farm as well. I still remember the milk truck coming to pick the milk up that was kept in the now old-fashioned milk cans. She would trade eggs and butter for cheese and other products the driver kept on the truck.
We didn’t go to town often, but when we did get to go, the highlight of the trip for me was the feed store. That was where Grandpa got his bib overalls. They never had them in my size. It was all I ever wanted, to be just like him.
As was common at that time, my Grandparents sold out and moved to a town near Reno, Nevada, for a job that was to bring a better life.
My family moved to a sheep ranch somewhere in Idaho. It was on this ranch I fell in love with dogs. The Basque sheepherders had these amazing dogs. I used to sneak out of the house and run to the camp whenever they were close to the main part of the ranch. The bread those families made was to die for, but more than that, it was the dogs that drew me in. Summers were the best. I could spend days riding in the sheep wagons pulled by horses and watching the dogs work the sheep. So grew my love for Australian Shepherds.
It wasn’t too many years and a divorce forced my Mom to take my little sister and me to live with my Grandparents once again. While Grandpa now had a regular job running heavy equipment, he still had pigs and goats to supplement the family's food supply. Most all the family that had been on the dairy farm were still living together. Now, most of the older Aunts and Uncles had regular jobs, so it fell upon my cousin and me to feed and care for livestock. We had one mutt dog that was mostly yellow but had a little merleing in places and he seemed interested in the goats. I set about trying to teach him to pen those goats like the Basques dogs did the sheep. Needless to say, that was a disaster and I got in a lot of trouble. That old dog and I were the best of friends and took our punishment together. Grandpa then spent long days teaching me how to teach 'Yeller' to do what I wanted him to do, on command, rather than sending the goats in 15 directions all over the place. I only wish I had been old enough to retain more of those lessons.
It wasn’t long after that, that my Mom met and married a man that would become a huge influence in my life. He was an engineer who worked for the Federal Government. He was attached to the Air Force and worked at Stead Air Force base at the time. He owned a house in town with a little yard in the back and he had a poodle. What a shock for a country kid. I hated that place. Soon Stead was closed and we were moved from base to base for a while.
Then we were sent to Shepherd Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas. Now, this was much better for me, as we lived right across the street from a farm where they raised Angus cattle. Just past that farm, there was a riding stable. On the other side of the farm, there was a golf course. Here I could ride my bike to the stables, where they let me clean stalls and feed horses. In the summers I sold lemonade on the golf course so I could make enough money to pay the stables to let me ride. Yes, I cleaned stalls for free just to be near the horses and still had to pay to ride.
Soon, we were moving again, this time to Williams Air Force Base. I begged for a horse as we lived close to 2 boarding stables. Dad told me if I wanted a horse, I had to earn enough money to buy and then care for it on my own. I set about getting lawn mowing jobs, babysitting jobs, and washing cars. I did extra chores at home and even cleaned more stalls (this time for money) at the boarding stable. It wasn’t long and I had $300.00 saved up. That doesn’t sound like much now, but in the late ’60s, that was good money for a kid. He helped me find a horse but the one I wanted was $300.00. No saddle, only a bridle, and bills staring me in the face, to feed and board the little grey mare, but I couldn’t have been happier. So began a long life of hard work to pay for my addiction.
When my parents finally gave in to the fact that I wasn’t giving up, they purchased a small acreage in the country, where I could have my animals without paying for a stall and riding my bike 1 mile each way, to care for the horse. I started high school in Gilbert Arizona, where I was the first girl to be in the agriculture program. I joined the FFA (Future Farmers of America) much to the dismay of the Ag teacher. Being the first girl and the only girl was a challenge. I soon proved myself to them and they stopped treating me like the plague. Now I had the chance to have a show steer, and travel to FFA judging events and every fair in 5 counties.
My Dad was great about all the extra travel and time that my passion took. However, he still insisted that I figure out how to pay for the expense of all the animals, that now had grown to several horses, dogs, and show steers. I made friends with an older gentleman who was my horse-shoer. He taught me to do my farrier work and got me hooked on training young horses to ride. This soon became a good income for a high school student, but a huge expense for my folks, with the trips to the emergency room. I got better and much smarter about what I would take on for a training job.
We had a neighbor who was a team roper and practiced weeknights just down the road. I started hanging out at the roping arena and soon met an older couple, who came every night there was roping. Bud and his wife soon became a substitute for my Grandparents, who now were so far away. Bud took me under his wing and taught me to rope. We were soon a force to be reckoned with, as a team (or so I thought). We won several local jackpot team ropings. This was a new source of income and afforded me enough money to purchase my first horse trailer. Now I just need to buy my own truck and get old enough for a license.
In no time it seemed, I graduated High School, got married, and started college at Scottsdale Community College. While I had applied to several veterinary colleges, I was accepted at 2. However, I was now married and my husband didn’t want to move, so I gave up the dream of becoming a vet. I turned my attention to horse training and dogs. I purchased my first pair of Australian Shepherds. These dogs were much bigger than I remembered the dogs from my childhood, but still had the herding instinct I was so fascinated with. Since I was still roping off and on, the dogs went everywhere with me. I soon had a list of people wanting puppies from the pair of working dogs that made the steers go where they should, at every roping. So, I became a dog breeder at the ripe old age of 21.
Several years later, divorce shattered my life. Now forced to live in an apartment with a tiny daughter, my life took a huge turn. I kept a couple of dogs and my now-old roping horse that had to live with my parents. I took a job at the feed store full time, attended a few livestock nutrition classes at the local college, and spent the weekends working as a waitress or whatever else I could make a little extra money at. A job opportunity came my way, to work in the downtown area of Phoenix at a large veterinary supply house. This was a huge educational opportunity as well as a pay increase. The drive was brutal every day and the daycare bill soon had me looking elsewhere.
The chance to go work on a 2,500-acre farm in Iowa took me far from home. I returned to my roots from the old farm place in Idaho and started a dairy business with a small Jersey herd, bought a couple of teams of horses, and with the help of a local upholstery shop owner, began building and restoring carriages. The Royal Carriage Company was born. On one trip to a parade with the horse-drawn wagon to a rodeo, I found a small yellow pup that was surely part Aussie. This dog soon became “Yeller” and a huge part of our lives. He practically raised my daughter, made getting the cows and horses out of the pastures an easy chore, and was my best friend for many years to come. The government "dairy buy-out-program" put the dairy out of business; the loss of a place to keep the horses (at the dairy) took me out of the carriage business, so once again, I was looking for work. I took a job with the local large animal vet. I loved the job and learned so much, but once again, with a child to raise on my own, I needed more income.
I was hired by Agri King and sent to Northern Pennsylvania, to become an area manager for the company. This meant traveling from dairy farm to dairy farm, helping farmers with feed rations and production records. Agri King sent me back to school to study more livestock nutrition. 2 winters in rural Pennsylvania found me begging to be transferred. I had enough of trudging through snow armpit deep and chipping into frozen silage, to get samples. One really cold snowy day, I stopped for a hot chocolate at a local store, where I bought a magazine. In the business section, I found a riding stable for sale in Southern Utah. I bought that place, sight unseen. Snow Canyon Stables become my daughter's and I's home, for the next 5 years.
While owning the stables, I met a park ranger, that would become the love of my life. I lost my Yeller dog and bought a blue heeler, adopted a Pomeranian, and had more fun with the dogs, horses, and customers than you can imagine. The downside was I never worked so hard to go broke in my life. We finally gave in and sold the stables, moved to Nevada and I got a job as a waitress at a local casino. Here I would meet a livestock inspector and soon became the regional inspector for the Sheriff's Department, Division of Agriculture. Since this was a part-time job, I stayed on at the casino and 3 short years later became the general manager. Two years in the high-stress position was all I could take.
Since I had learned from the upholstery shop owner how to sew, from the harness maker I dealt with when I had the carriage company, and how to do leather work, I bought the upholstery machine and began building the fly masks for horses that my Mom invented. I learned how to sew on a house machine and taught myself to quilt. My art quilts were a big hit but sure weren’t going to replace the lost income from the casino. So, I went to work for an even larger casino as the restaurant manager. That didn’t last long so I went to work for a small animal vet as a general assistant. Again I learned a lot from this job and loved what I was doing, but the pay certainly wasn’t anything to brag about.
My husband was from Oklahoma and wanted to move back home, so we put our acreage up for sale. Shortly after arriving in Oklahoma, I became a vendor, going to horse shows and rodeos, and selling the things I made. At a paint horse show in Tulsa, I met a lady who had this little blue dog following her. Now that was the dog I remember from the sheep ranch. That was what an Aussie should look like to me. Little did I know that she and I would become the best of friends and that little blue dog would lead me back to dogs I so loved from my childhood. To learn more about Toy and Miniature Australian Shepherds, also known as Toy or Mini Aussies, please visit ToyMiniAussies.net.
I still have horses, one that I have had for over 20 years. We now have a small herd of cattle, and I still make leather items. I purchased my first Mini Australian Shepherd from my friend. We now own 9 of them and are avid promoters of the breed. While we do breed and produce 3 to 5 litters a year, my main focus is showing the dogs and improving the breed.
The gas prices took me from going to the shows to making my own websites. It was while trying to learn to make websites I met a man over the phone who seemed to know more than anyone I had talked to up to that point. With his help, my websites now soar in the page rankings and climb every day. Now in my 60’s, the dogs and the websites dominate my life. Who said you can’t teach an old dog new tricks?
My teacher has retired. So now I am mostly on my own. I specialize in animal-type websites. While this does provide most of my income, my love is still for the animals.