Ah, Jane the Basset Hound. She has a lot of little personality quirks, such as hating to ride in the car, hating to touch water (I have to carry her across the tiniest half-inch-deep stream), loving to be blow-dried after a bath, carrying her food dish into the living room to eat by the fire, waking me up at 4 a.m. to tell me to cover her up with the blanket. Jane just wants to be loved. Her favorite things in life seem to be our four-mile hike every morning and a pillow in the sun.

Reilly is a Briard, an ancient breed of French Sheepdog. He's my best bud, born on my 40th birthday. Very big, smart, adoring, and protective. He loves to be trained. The most difficult thing has been to teach him not to herd humans. "No, Reilly, the FedEx man does not belong in the pen!"

There is a great web site for Briards, and also from the breeders where I bought Reilly. Notice Reilly does not look quite as lovely as the show dogs. I wish I could train him to groom himself.

Briards have to be named with a certain letter to indicate what year they were born. Reilly was born in the year of the I, so his official name is It's Reilly!

If you were browsing in the hat
collection, and you just came to see
Jane and Reilly, you can go back to
the hat collection entry page.

Or, you can go