Early 90's

In October 1991, with my art career losing a bit of its lustre, I embarked on a self-guided study of animal behavior, concentrating on cats (in 5th grade I was the kid who produced a detailed paper on color genetics in calico cats), dogs and horses. I also studied wild canids, rodents and stinging insects such as wasps and hornets (which I still find fascinating).
I read every book I could find at our local libraries in Ann Arbor (and the University of Michigan) and Chelsea, where I lived during that time. With the decades that followed of continued self-education, I have learned as much or more than any collegiate degreed behaviorist.
In August 1992 I answered the call of volunteering at the Humane Society of Huron Valley in Ann Arbor. Under the tutelage of the highly respected Linda Reider (now a top staffer at the Michigan Humane Society) and the staff there I learned how to vaccinate, draw blood, euthanize, identify various illnesses and of course, behavior issues. It was here that I began learning basic traditional dog training. In continued years, I would add my own deep behavioral observations to standard and modified learned training techniques to form my own training ideas.
I volunteered and/or worked at HSHV between 40-60 hours a week. I painted murals, designed artwork, worked at the gift shop and HSHV's Ann Arbor Art Fair Booth, cleaned kennels, did the radio show with Paul Ristich, the manager (my best friend at the shelter) and would eat my lunch while watching spay and neuter surgeries in the clinic. It's still the favorite place I have ever worked.
In September 1992 I began participating further in the Australian Cattle Dog Rescue for Michigan, the bud of which I had unofficially started in 1990:
A rescue ACD my then-housemate adopted from the Lenawee County Humane Society made me realize this breed is terrific and there must be more at shelters. But with only her 2 dogs allowed at our place, rescue efforts were put on hold until I lived somewhere when I could help more. That came that September in 1992 when I worked at HSHV.
An avid book reader, I borrowed and read many of the shelter's training, behavior and dog breed books to further my animal behavior studies and, later, to learn about dog breeds for my jewelry business.
In one of those books (the Simon and Schuster book of dog breeds) was one that intrigued me: the Wirehaired Portuguese Podengo Medio.
The internet was very much alive in 1993 at the University of Michigan, where my 'other half' Steve worked, so I was able to search on the various rec.pets.dogs online bulletin boards to see if there were any of these Podengo dogs in America. I found 2 other interested persons but no dogs or breeders. So we whiled our time here and there with our dreams of owning these dogs. We had no practical knowledge of them, except that they were good looking and (to me) they must be easier to live with than the tough-as-nails ACD.
When 'Three Wishes' came out in 1994, with a WPM as the MacGuffin (plot enabling device), I realized there were some in America but calls to California proved fruitless.
I stopped working at HSHV in July 1994 to pursue my animal jewelry business, Critter Factory. I had launched it at officially at HSHV's gift shop at Christmastime 1992 and sold it there and at the Ann Arbor Art Fair, both years I was there, donating most of the money back to HSHV.
I got a twice a week stand at the Ann Arbor Farmer's Market and publicly launched Critter Factory.
It was great fun to sell at the market and have access to fresh produce, eggs and all the other artists. I made some good friends and customers there. I adored being in the heart of it all on the weekends in Ann Arbor, though when it was cold, it was COLD! In those days, especially during the holidays, I would remind my friends 'but the money keeps you warm!'
Which it did- my designs were popular and enabled me to continue growing my customer base until finally I decided to leave the market selling and start selling at dog shows. I was neck-deep in ACD Rescue and with the internet blossoming, more and more dogs showed up at shelters. We made the decision to only obtain dogs from shelters, as they would often include many vital services at less cost than we could get on our own with private releases. Private releases (or as we called them 'get riddas') would also often lie about their dogs' temperaments and we'd end up having to put down the occasional dog with defensive aggressive feral reversion, which we dubbed 'Jeckyll and Hyde' syndrome. This is a breed that owes a great deal of its heritage to the wild Australian Dingo and is capable of aggressive and defensive feral behavior in the right circumstances. Unfortunately, those circumstances come regularly with dogs that are dumped...those are the abused ones.