Rikki

A portrait of the artist’s German Shepherd, V Rikki vom Steffen Haus SCHH3. Rikki came to live with the artist and his wife as an older dog. They had tragically lost a much-loved Shepherd that they had gotten from a dear friend and longtime client, Jane Steffenhagen. In search of a similarly bred dog, they found a breeder that was travelling to get a puppy from another breeder that had a litter from one of Jane’s females.

When he arrived, he discovered a sad scene. Once a top show dog in Germany, Rikki had been sold to an American kennel to be used for breeding. She had been kept, for two years, in the same shipping crate that she had arrived in from Germany and was suffering from severe muscle loss and profound depression.

The breeder that had come to get the puppies knew he couldn’t leave her there for whatever sad fate retirement had in store so he brought her along when he met the Boguckis in Indiana, where they had come to pick up the puppy.

Always a soft touch where animals were concerned, Ed took one look at the dejected dog with her nose pointed at the ground from years of standing to look out of her crate door, and agreed that the mother and son would both be coming home with them.

Jane was delighted to hear that Rikki was safe and told the Boguckis “you could do worse than having a dog like Rikki in your life.” As the rambunctious puppy, Rowdy, grew by leaps and bounds under her watchful eye, Rikki happily settled in her life as a house pet where she was treasured as a beloved member of the family for the rest of her days.