My memory does not allow me to recall the exact date when I took my at the time girl-enemy Brenda to a pet store that had about a dozen puppies. We both fell in love with a couple of pups at the store, one of them was a Cocker Spaniel and the other was an over sized Taco Bell Chihuahua. Personally I would have been fine with either one of them and that is saying a lot because never have I really like Chihuahua’s plus the fact I hate fads to a large degree but this Chihuahua had quite a personality that both Brenda and I enjoyed.

We were close to leaving the pet store with with one of the above mentioned pups but I decided to wait because I recalled someone at my prior job either was a dog breeder or his family was involved in some way so I wanted to see what they had. The anger was not huge but the at the time girl-enemy was upset we did not take Chihuahua out of the store with us. I realize no matter what pup we ended up with the pup would have been loved and enjoyed but in no way would any other pup be the joy Barney would wind up being.

On September 20, 2001 Brenda & I met an unnamed White West Highland Terror, in fact three of them.

Getting her to have an open mind about another breed was not an easy task in part because when I heard the type of breed my prior co-worker had I did that google search thing to show her some images. While the photo I found was not super bad it was of a “show-dog” that looked way to stiff and not fun at all. After she fell in love the Chihuahua & seeing the image as displayed here to the right the odds of getting a Westie appeared slim.

Most likely if I continued to search for just a few other images such as the one to the left trying to get her to be more willing would have been easier. Even so I was able to convince her to go look anyhow. While he was not named Barney at the time it seemed within moments Barney captured the hearts of both of us.

There were three Westies we had to choose from, Barney his sister and brother. Both the sister and brother were more polished in the sense they had pure white fur and both of their ears had already popped up. Barney on the other hand was a bit bigger, some wheat color in his fur and one droopy ear.

We did not bond with Barney the second we met him but it was clear from the looks of all three of them the at the time girl-enemy felt much better based on how they looked in comparison of the image to the right side of this page so that was good. We took turns petting each of them and the truth is Barney picked us and not the other way around.  We took the baby Westies outside one at a time and the second we got out the door with Barney his entire personality changed from a timed Westie to the Barney I know to this day. He was bouncing around filled with the type of joy that can only make a human smile.