By Patrick Ball
Staff Writer
Bedford residents played important roles in the successful rescue of three Bearded Collies from an apparent puppy mill on the South Shore last week.
Barbara Marshall, rescue coordinator for the Bearded Collie Club of America's New England last Sunday received a call from the dog officer from southern Massachusetts informing her a home with 12 Beardies eight puppies and four adults was to be raided the following day. The officer said if Marshall could get there by noon on Monday she could have the three breeding females.
Marshall and a friend, Joanne Williamson, an Acton resident and one of the best trainers of Bearded Collies in history, brought the three matted "breeding bitches" to McGrath Animal Hospital in Billerica for rabies shots. None of the three had had inoculations past their puppy shots, though they were one, two and three years old, the oldest having already birthed two litters.
When Marshall brought the dogs back to Bedford, Roberta Storlazzi from Ladies Lil Miss Dog Grooming volunteered to shave the dogs right in Marshall's garage on North Road.
Storlazzi and employee Candice Hassam started shaving two of the dogs in Barbara Marshall's garage, but found no fleas and finished up at the shop.
"Two of them we had to strip, because they were so severely matted. One of them we were able to save her coat", said Storlazzi, who was amazed the dogs didn't have skin infections or fleas, given the mats were literally on the skin.
"It was so sad these poor dogs, but they were so nice", she said.
Storlazzi does dog rescues with other organizations, but this was her first time working with Bearded Collie rescue. Though she has had some experience grooming Beardies, as Marshall brings her dogs to Ladies Lil' Miss.
The dogs were then given a complete exam at the vet, and brought to foster homes where they await adoption. Two of the Beardies went to a farm in Vermont; the third is at a home in Nahant.
Jane Puffer, 64, of Bedford, is adopting Opal, the one-year-old Beardie. She expects to get her shortly after Labor Day.
"We had a bearded Collie, Benjamin, and we got him through the MSPCA, said Puffer. We didn't have a clue what we had. We just knew he was very cute."
Ben died about eight years ago from lymphoma, and Puffer, who had known the Marshalls for years, asked Barbara to put her on the list of potential homes for rescued dogs.
"We just never thought we'd get one. Barbara said they didn't come up all that often. But we went to seven o'clock Mass on Sunday, and she met us after that to tell us she had a few Beardies and would we like one?" said Puffer. "They're beautiful, curious and full of fun. They're just great, great dogs."
Marshall said, "I've been to shelters or other situations, but I've never been involved with a seizure and they had all been singular rescues before this one."
She hooked up with the BCCA rescue in 1985, a year after her first Beardie had been returned to her.
"They just dropped it off on the porch," she said. So, Marshall called a friend of hers on Long Island, National Coordinator for BCCA rescue Paul Glatzer and asked what to do if a dog needs to be replaced.?" There was no sort of conduit between responsible breeders, who are always ready to take back puppies at that time."
Now, 20 years since later, Marshall has rescued and replaced 129 dogs.
The fee is $150 to adopt a rescued Beardie, but oftentimes the adopters are generous. One woman for example, bequeathed $10,000 to the BCCA.
Marshall has been breeding, herding and showing Beardies for 30 years now, over that time the Donbarlen (a composite of husband Don's, Barbara's and son Allen's names) bred Beardies have had 11 litters with an average of seven or eight puppies.
The most dogs the Marshalls have ever had at one time is five, but Barbara does have a kennel license. They currently have three dogs, Digby, Spirit and Garbo. "You can't have a favorite; It's like kids, you might have a favorite in your heart, but you can't let people know," she said.
"The dogs really do have their own personalities", she said. "Garbo, who's named for Greta, her whole atitude since she was a puppy is that I vant to be alone. Digby, he just won't leave my side and Spirit, her whole life is retrieving."
She brings the dogs to the Bedford VA Hospital on Fridays. "They are therapy dogs," she said, "and go up and do physical therapy with the residents. Garbo gives out kisses and Spirit plays fetch with patients by the hour, she even knows their names."
She's had 13 champions. The first two were from the same 1981 litter, a male, Champion Whispered Wish O?Donbarlen TD, and a female, Braer Honey O'Donbarlen.
All Donbarlen Beardies have the Herding Instinct Tests (HIT) by the Bearded Collie Club of America. In fact, Marshall has the distinction of being the only person to have had two collies pass the test at the same time.
She said she fell in love with Bearded Collies in 1976, after seeing a breeder from Boxborough, Virginia Parsons on a daytime television woman's program with three Beardies: Champion Cannamoor Honey Rose, a brown puppy and a male dog named Bravo.
"I called her up and asked her where I could buy one," said Marshall. "She sent me to a dog show in Providence."
But Marshall couldn't find one on the East coast because they'd only been imported from Scotland for less than a decade at that point, and were still rare. Her son, Allen, was studying at the University of Glasgow at the time, and she asked him if he could find her one. His first question, she said, was "Mom, what is that?"
"Well," she replied, "It's a shaggy dog with a lot of heart and a lot of smarts."
Allen finally located a dog in Surrey, England from the mother of the renowned Beardie Breeder Nicholas Broadbridge
Mrs. Broadbridge had had a repeat breeding of a very successful breeding, and Allen picked out a puppy, Gilly, which was born on the Queen's Jubilee in 1977.
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