I previously talked about Carlos and Baruffa, both Samoyeds. I just got a comment from an old friend about how cute the puppies are and realized that I have known her for almost as long as I have know about Samoyeds. I worked with her in 1970. At that same time I bought a Samoyed for the daughter of a friend and co-worker.

The beginning of the Samoyed story goes back to 1967. I had a summer job as an Electronics Engineer at Hughes Aircraft Company. My office mate was named Stan Rolinski. Stan and his girlfriend had Samoyeds and he liked to talk about them. While my favorite story was about how, once a month, he had to put the top down on his VW and drive down the freeway to get the dog fur out of the car, learning about there personalities was the most important.

You see, they apparently think they are people with four legs and fur. They are just downright friendly—to anyone. Well, a few years later I was talking to Mari, my friend Norm's daughter about what she wanted for her (as I remember) third birthday. She said, "a dog and a cat".

Well, Norm is allergic to cats so I decided that a dog was about the best I could do. But, she was small and her little brother Brian was smaller. That meant if there was to be a dog, it needed to be "kid-proof". That made me think of Stan and his Samoyeds. I called him up to chat about Samoyeds and kids.

He assured me that they would be fine with kids of any age and also explained that it would be extremely unlikely that Norm would be allergic to them. I was convinced. I think it was he who gave me the name of someone with puppies to sell.

Well, the dog was bought and brought to Mari's birthday party full of kids. The only "event" was when Brian, hot dog in hand, leaned forward to pet the dog and essentially put the hot dog in her mouth. Norm named her "Natasha Baby Snobol" to get in a bit of programmer humor. She was, of course, called Tasha.

While she got along fine with the kids, they had a small yard and she found that digging up plants got her a lot of attention. Two years later I was living on a farm and Norm decided it was better if she dug up my plants instead of his. She was a delightful dog and while I taught her that the command "kill" meant go out into the front yard and "do your business", it was only seen as shocking by uninvited insurance salesman and religious peddlers.

After I moved to Costa Rica I saw an ad for a "used" Samoyed in the paper. He was only six months old but was the victim of too small a yard. That's Carlos, now eight. While people in Latin America don't think you should give a pet a "human name", that name has become a good joke here. I explain that he is Tico and all Ticos are named Carlos. It's close to true and Nicaraguans are amused.

Last year we decided it would be nice if Carlos had a Samoyed playmate. While he has a couple of Husky "girlfriends" and they are pretty nice dogs, Samoyeds are, well, just more "human". Well, we managed to come up with a little Tica Samoyed that we smuggled into Nicaragua. She's not so little anymore, Carlos figured it out and, thus, we have three new Samoyeds here.