Am/Can Ch Terrarust N FoPaw's My Alibi

aka Ally McBeal (which we always spelled Ali)

December 21, 1998 - February 14, 2013 

In February of 1999 Kevin and I had been bitten by the basenji show bug and were anticipating a future in breeding our own litter.  We began a search for our brood bitch looking at pedigrees and breeders upcoming plans.  We planned to get a bitch in the fall but all that was soon to change.

The weekend of Valentines Day we went to Cloverdale BC to a dog show and David Davidson invited us to go with him to Terray Boomir's home for dinner.  We were not only excited to meet Terray for the first time but also because we had heard she had 2 litters of basenji pups we could play with.

All 14 pups were in Terray's tiny kitchen and one little red girl rushed to the baby gate and greeted us with a huge yodel.  I was instantly in love.  We played with pups, had a wonderful dinner and headed back to our hotel with me telling Kevin how much I loved that little puppy girl and him telling me we had our path forward all lined out and she was probably already spoken for.

Sunday February 14th as we were loading up to leave Kevin asked me to get the keys out of the tack box in the back of our van where he had left them. I opened the tack box to find a large Valentines card with a note inside...the girl you fell in love with at Terray's is in the back seat, Happy Valentines Day, Love Kev.

This was the beginning of a 14 year adventure with a girl I always referred to as the "most beautiful" basenji god ever created.  I told her that nearly every day of her life.  I think it gave her a sense of who she was and why she carried herself like royalty through out her life.

When Ali was about 3 months old I took her out in our front yard to practice moving her, Kevin sat on our front steps watching to see how she moved.  When I looked up to ask how she looked he was gone, I found him in the house calling everyone we knew to tell them how amazing this little girl was.

Her first time in the ring was a Willamette Valley Specialty and she won Best in Sweeps under L Jane Williams, we were over the moon.  She was the kind of show dog I had dreamed of having, she loved it.

Shortly after that I entered her in an International show and came home with a Best in Show ribbon under Margaret Robertson.  I just went for fun and encouraged Kevin to stay home to work on a project, I can still see the surprise on his face when I walked in with her BIS ribbon.

Ali came from Canada and her breeder had vaccinated her (as many did) our vet who we thought was responsible told us it wasn't safe to rely on a breeders vaccines and he insisted on restarting Ali's vaccine protocol.  He also insisted on worming her and gave her what we now know was the same amount a great dane pup would have received and it was a 5 part combo vaccine in 4 additional doses on top of what Terray had given, better to be safe than sorry he said.

Before Ali turned a year old we moved to a new home and we were about to look for a new vet, our vet encouraged us to update all our dogs vaccines to be safe and especially since we planned to breed Ali.  She had been in heat and it seemed to split, we initially attributed it to the move but then wondered if the combo vaccine and the rabies booster had played a role in her heat cycle being off.

By January Ali became suddenly very ill and her blood count began dropping.  After specialty vets and emergency hospitals she was diagnosed with Red Blood Cell Aplasia, it was determined the over vaccination of Parvo had triggered an immune system response similar to what people get when they have the Parvo virus, we were told she was not expected to live. 

I did not want  a new car that year and couldn't imagine life without Ali so Kevin and I started on a path that lead to working with several vets, MD's, nursing staff, and WSU Vet school in Pullman WA along with my taking a blood course to understand what all the tests meant.  Ali became a project and because we couldn't send her to Pullman to the lab, our vets worked with Pullman and Kevin did spread sheets, graphs and charts of everything she went through.

Ali had bone marrow extracted for diagnostic purposes, was on human growth hormones (cause you really can't get dog growth hormones) for a time and had three blood transfusions.   She had blood counts done at times daily but usually 3 times a week and now that we had a brand new vet she was on a walk in basis at his clinic, even the receptionist made her oatmeal cookies for her visits to make it better for her.

The basenji community was amazing, breeders contacted us from all over offering us free puppies to replace her if she died and even some offering free puppies for us to sell to off set the expenses.  The out pouring of support is something we never forgot and got us through the difficult days more than anyone might know.

After a year of treatment and an episode of actually scheduling her death and preparing to send organ tissue samples Ali somehow rallied.  My vet Dr William Cleveland said it was purely because of her heart, which we all knew she had no shortage of.  She would even yodel at the staff in his clinic and even after all the needle sticks and nasty meds she still loved our vet.

Ali went on that winter to finish her Canadian championship, her CKC title and photo still hang in our vets office.  By summer she was well enough to enter the Evergreen Basenji Club Specialty.  She still had a visible square on her hip from being shaved for bone marrow extraction and was still building muscle but was as beautiful as ever.  We like to say Ali won everything but the breed that day.  She finished her AKC championship with Winner's bitch, Best of Winners, Best Op Sex and did it in record heat going around the ring flawlessly every time.  There was not a dry eye on the grounds and I think the judge was stunned at the cheering she got that day. Two of her trophies were made by L Jane Williams, she had come full circle from that Best in Sweeps win she started with.

Ali had so much personality in the show ring that Kevin decided to teach her to yodel by hand signal.  With this trick I could come back from a down and back and while standing beside a judge signal her at which time she would yodel at the judge, got a smile every time.  Erin Roberts who was showing Ali's brother Bailey at that time so loved getting Ali to yodel the two of them would draw a crowd ring side at shows. 

She worked the judges and the crowd with charm like I had not seen nor have ever seen again. I took her to a couple of National Specialties and she always brought smiles by yodeling in the ring and when you told her how pretty she was she would brush her face with her paw as if embarrassed by the compliment.

Ali lived out her life with only minor health issues due to the illness she had survived, she helped develop a protocol that has since saved many dogs and cats over the past many years and just a few months ago when talking to Dr Jane Woodrup at WSU she said she hesitated but asked how Ali had done, I was thrilled to tell her Ali was in my lap while we were talking.

On February 13th, 2013 Ali wasn't herself, she had been slowing down in the months prior but was still our little princess.  When she passed up her dinner I was concerned but let her rest the night checking on her often.  By morning she didn't seem interested in getting up and still wouldn't eat or drink.  Ali loved hot baths so I gave her one and wrapped her in a warm blanket.  We called her vet and arranged a visit to see him for what we feared was her last visit when it dawned on Kevin and I what day it was.  

So, on February 14th 2013 exactly 14 years after Kevin gave me the best gift ever, our girl left us. She left this place as gracefully as she lived in it and surrounded by some of the staff that had cared for her so many years ago.  Another day in Ali's life that there was not a dry eye in the place.

Although we never risked breeding Ali, Mary Ann Palm loaned us Ali's grandmother to start our breeding program and Terray Boomir offered to co-own Ali's sister Roz and allowed us to breed a litter out of her.  So we still consider Ali the start of our breeding program and the path forward to the dogs we have since bred, owned, placed, shown and loved.

I used to tell Ali every day we had sunshine that it was a day god created for her and we were lucky to get to share it, the day after she passed the sun came out at our place and I believe it was sent by her.  Kevin's favorite event with Ali was to watch fireworks on the 4th of July, she would yodel at the sparkles in the sky she loved them and even when she was sick she sat in his lap wrapped in a blanket and watched the fireworks, yodeling at the biggest ones.  Kev and I promised her where she was going would have sunshine every day and fireworks every night.  We will be there soon Ali Princess Pumpkin McBeal we miss you with all our hearts.