Dog owner is as loyal, determined as her champions
  Laurel Walker |
Town of Ottawa - You've heard the expression, "dogged determination"?
Meet Sandy Patterson, the essence of it.
A battery isn't the only thing that powers her wheelchair. Willpower and dedication to her dogs keeps her going and showing despite her decades-long battle with multiple sclerosis.
Patterson, 60, breeds and raises Samoyeds on the 5-acre spread she and husband Gary own on Highway D in western Waukesha County. She shows the dogs within a 300-mile radius, which takes her on the road in her adapted van on many weekends.
Last week, Patterson introduced me to her Samoyed, a breed of gorgeous white fur balls originating in Siberia.
| Advertisement |
 Sandy Patterson |
|
Photo/Jack Orton Sandy Patterson, who has multiple sclerosis, works with Reign, an 8-year-old Samoyed, in her dog barn at her home in the town of Ottawa. Patterson credits working with and caring for her show dogs as one reason she remains mobile. You just have to keep at it, she said. |
|
Photo/Jack Orton Sandy Patterson cares for, shows and sells champion Samoyeds all while dealing with challenges relating to her multiple sclerosis. Ive got the greatest friends, she said. I couldnt do it without friends. |
I met the frisky 6-month old officially named "Classic Edition Q-T Enuf" and the regal, biscuit-colored champion stud, 8, whom she calls "Reign" for short. (I'll spare you the rest of the full registered names, which can go on longer than a Siberian winter.)
Next came Abby, 1 ½, already working toward a championship, and her mom, Tess, 6, a champ who's pregnant again; and EZ, a 13-month-old looking scraggly while "blowing his coat" (Samoyed for shedding), especially next to his full-and-fluffy-haired litter mate, Willie. Finally, there's Lexie, 5, a petite lady destined to be bred with Patterson's tall studs in order to scale down the next generation, all the better for showing.
"This is the reason I get up in the morning," said Patterson, suggesting that for someone who's lived with progressive MS as long as she has, getting up isn't always a first choice.
She credits the exercise she gets - lifting water buckets, filling feed trays, hauling bedding, shoveling, raking and sweeping the barn floor, combing hair, clipping nails, tossing the ball, bathing them and everything else it takes to run a kennel - with keeping her moving as well as she does.
MS is thought to be an autoimmune disease affecting the central nervous system, where damaged nerve coatings interrupt signals that carry messages from the brain. Patterson's left side and legs are the most severely affected.
If the dogs don't keep her busy enough, she and Gary also own two donkeys, three goats, two lambs, chickens and a golden lab. As she showed off the menagerie, Patterson cruised through the barnyard dirt.
"Oh, I can get through anything," she said. "You just have to keep at it."
Turns out, that's how she seems to approach life.
She was raised in Brookfield with a love for horses and dogs, but she didn't get serious about owning them until later. Soon after leaving home at about age 18, she had her first hospitalization with MS, though it wasn't diagnosed until more than a decade later, in 1978.
By then she had married Gary, now retired from the Brookfield highway department. The couple owned and boarded Arabian horses and, along with their son, showed them throughout the Midwest
Soon after relocating to Ottawa in 1978, Patterson's MS symptoms became more serious until she was using crutches, then a scooter and finally, for the past eight years, a wheelchair. For the past 15 years, she's been getting all-day blood exchange treatments once every three weeks which, similar to kidney dialysis, renews her strength, she said.
Still, she was forced to sell the horses and concentrate on the Samoyeds, which she'd also been breeding, showing and selling. With the help of neighbors and friends in dog clubs, as well as a pet grooming school that trains students using her dogs, Patterson keeps up with the workload.
Even at the worst of times, her determination pays off.
In 1999, she was dealt a severe setback, the combination of MS, surgery for a degenerative spine and several infections that landed her in the hospital and rehab for a year. That was bad enough, but when it came as the Samoyed Club of America was holding its national championship in Oconomowoc, she was dying to go though flat on her back.
With the help of a local ambulance service, she was able to spend the week in a gurney at ringside. Neighbors and handlers helped show her dogs, just as they help now.
"I've got the greatest friends," she said, incredibly upbeat-sounding despite her circumstances. "I couldn't do it without friends."
Patterson doesn't just take care of her own dogs. She's a go-to girl for local dog clubs who call on as a volunteer organizer and helper. She claims to be a master at finding donations and selling raffle tickets.
"Hey, who's gonna refuse?" she says, gesturing to her wheelchair.
At Christmas time, as a volunteer bell ringer for the Salvation Army's kettle campaign, she says the combination of her in a wheelchair and her red-ribboned champ, Reign, along side are irresistible. People fill a bucket with donations in two hours.
She used to spin yarn from her dogs' excess hair and then knit it into soft scarves and sweaters, but MS took her spinning legs out from under her.
Sandy knows the road ahead might be rough, but she said she's one who finds ways around adversity.
"I've had 14 brain concussions and was pronounced dead twice," said Patterson, who deserves a degree from the school of hard knocks. The near-death experience came when she fell, and a horse fell on top of her. She said emergency workers delivered her to a hospital in a hearse because no ambulance was handy. Here she is, alive to tell about it.
A cat has nine lives, we're supposed to believe. But Patterson is one determined dog owner who can top that.
Have an opinion on this story? Write a letter to the editor or start an online forum.
Subscribe today and receive 4 weeks free! Sign up now.