What was I doing five years ago?

As the year 2000 began, I was still shuddering whenever I recalled the previous autumn and the day the fishing boat that my DS was on sank approximately 90 miles off Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. I thank God daily for sparing his life and the lives of the other two crew members.

No longer working outside the home, I was getting all the work, and exercise, I needed chasing my two year old Basenji, Dream. This little girl made raising two borderline hyperactive children seem like a walk in the park!! Beautiful to look at . . . . . . she could chew furniture, blankies, and plastic faster than a swarm of carpenter ants could bring down a house. There were days when my DH lamented that instead of her name being Dream, we should have called her Nightmare; and when anyone asked what kind of a dog she was he would announce that they most likely didn't want one as they were a cross between a Tasmanian Devil and a hemorrhoid! In truth, as they are semi-wild dogs originally from the African jungles, they can be quite a challenge to live with and I would never recommend anyone purchasing a Basenji without a lot of study on the breed and learning about them from a reputable Basenji person. Two informative websites for research are the Basenji Club of Canada http://www.basenjiclubofcanada.com/ and the
Basenji Club of America http://www.basenji.org/ .

In the spring of that year, DH and I made our first trip to visit with Basenji friends in the US and we had a wonderful time.

Having been diagnosed with DRD ( Dopa Responsive Dystonia ) three years previously, I was trying to adjust to a life of living with a progressive disease which has also caused me to have Secondary Parkinsonism as well. Two for the price of one. My DRD is hereditary, but there are other types. For more information on the disease please go to http://www.drdcentral.com/ .

Keep on smiling! :-)