Well, well. From the shadows of the past I shall try to bring to you dear, long-lost Mae, one of the best examples of a near-ROM dam in all of Sheltie history. This is Mae, photographed by me long ago on a hot summer day, six weeks in whelp and not fully in coat, a dark-sable girl who is still all over the Sheltie map in pedigrees. I remember her best as an unassuming couch-companion who loved potato chips and vanilla ice cream, the eager girl who was always the first to jump into the canoe for a glide around our pond, but, of course, she was more than just my friend. Today Mae's influence is widespread. I thought it might be time to tell you about her.

I first saw Mae when she was about nine weeks old, at Banchory in with several other puppies of about the same age. Her neck, her skull, her eye, were breathtaking. This High Born daughter out of Banchory All-A-Glow had been named "Mae" because she reminded Donna of one of her earliest champions, Ch. Banchory Mae West. Mae was always possessed of an extraordinary dignity. This dignity she had even as a young puppy. Mae had two smaller sable female littermates almost as beautiful; where they ended up, I do not know. These girls occasionally had the "puppy sillies," but Mae was grave and thoughtful even as a very young girl. Mae had skull and neck and eye. Fine. So do many others. But, oh, her running gear! Her angulation, bone, and plushy sable coat were evident even at nine weeks. Today Mae would be thought to have extreme angulation. To this I say, "She did -- extremely CORRECT!" Mae had very nice on-top natural ears, good bite and teeth, long correctly carried tail, and many other fine qualities. Her thick sable coat had a richness about it, and great depth of pigment. Mae's coat was very darkly shaded and looked almost like a fur coat of real sable that any movie star would covet. You almost felt as if you wanted to WEAR her! Mae was long in back, and in the opinions of some, had rather an extreme Collie look to her head. But her head was clean, lean, and glass-smooth, depthless, with gorgeous eye and eyeset, beautiful correct underjaw, millimetrically parallel planes, flat topskull, and her head-length was in proportion to her height and body length. In the photograph above, her muzzle looks longer than her backskull but it was not. I have yet to see a more correct Sheltie expression. Mae was a stunner. It's not often that a breeding produces a beautiful head with a beautiful body, but she had both. Mae was 15 3/4", but always looked larger because of her long neck, big bone, and long body. Early on, Mae went to Rivendell Shelties, co-owned with Banchory. She was later re-acquired by Banchory. As it happened, I never owned or co-owned Mae, but I had Mae as a houseguest for many months. She had already been bred back to her sire and had produced a pretty darned nice sable male, at the time co-owned by Banchory and Maramet Shelties. (I lived in Arizona at the time, and remember very well a certain fun match. Oh, my. I will get to that when I write about that pretty darned nice son, Banchory Reflection, ROM.)

With Mae, we moved to Mississippi, where she bonded to my foundation bitch, Banchory Half Moon, whose page can be reached via her button at the bottom of this page. Mae and Niki were inseparable, and spent many long hours together. Eventually, however, Mae was re-acquired by Banchory and had to return to Oregon. Niki and Mae never forgot each other. The story of Mae and Niki can be found in the 1999 Sheltie Pacesetter.

Mae's main drawback as a showgirl was that she hated shows! This is a pretty formidable drawback, even for a dog as beautiful as Mae. In particular, Mae disliked noise, and she didn't like people that she didn't know, touching her face. As a judge reached for her, she would look down that long nose as if the judge had cooties, pull herself to her full height, and turn her head away. This did not do anything for her career! Mae was shown several times as a puppy, but never got over her dislike of the show ring. She never won anything because she refused to show, but when shown, she caused a commotion at ringside as people sat speechless, then began ruffling catalogues and muttering "Who IS that bitch? Who IS she?" After several shows, Mae STILL hated it. She was soon retired to the brood box, where she shone.

Bred to her sire, High Born, Mae produced Banchory Reflection, ROM, sire of dozens of American Champions, and still a major influence on the breed. Bred to Ch. Cherden Sock It To 'Em, CD, ROM, Mae produced the pretty tri gal Ch. Banchory Gypsy Queen, who became a strong foundation bitch for Stonewall Shelties. Other Mae offspring you may see in pedigrees today are Banchory Catch the Wind, Banchory Cappella, Banchory Angelique, and Banchory After Glow (dam of Ch. Banchory Burning Embers).

An ideal bitch with whom to accomplish the Banchory-Peter cross, Mae was bred to Ch. Halstor's Peter Pumpkin, ROM, twice and produced the sable littermate sons Ch. Banchory the Candidate and Ch. Banchory the Cornerstone, ROM, and also one of her influential daughters, Ch. Banchory Arabesque, dam of Ch. Banchory Formal Notice, ROM. Formal Notice was a double-Mae grandson, since his sire was Banchory Reflection.

If there was one characteristic that epitomized Mae, it was loyalty. Mae was indifferent to you until she knew you; if Mae became your friend, she was your friend for life. You had to earn Mae's affection; you could not buy it with a cookie. She regarded you calmly with those deep brown eyes and then, if she knew you, if she liked you, would dip her head and place her muzzle in your hand. The AKC Sheltie standard calls for loyalty, but these days we give loyalty lip service only. In advertising, how many times have you seen the word "loyal"? Contrast this with how often you see "outgoing," a word that does not appear in our standard. We may still be overreacting to correct the fearfulness of Shelties of the distant past by choosing shallow, heedless dogs that have un-Sheltielike temperament. A Sheltie should be able to distinguish a stranger from a beloved friend, and one should be able to tell from the dog's reaction whether the person is a familiar friend or a new acquaintance. This does not mean that the dog should be afraid, or even uncertain. This means that when you come home from work bringing a new acquaintance, that your dog runs to you, greets you, lavishes affection upon you, and then turns with calm steadiness to meet the new person. Loyalty is a Sheltie breed characteristic, an indication of intelligence and depth of character. The show ring is wonderful, is necessary, but thousand-volt vibrating showmanship is not everything. There should be some room for loyalty in the show Sheltie because, after all, they our our companions. When I think of loyalty, I think of High Glow, and hope that her capacity for deep love and loyalty has come down to us in some of her current descendants. There are many, many of them.

Mae died rather young, at six or seven years of age, if I remember correctly. She had a handful of litters, and never "burned up the show ring." But I see Mae here and there in a number of Sheltie faces and I smile and remember. Like Half Moon, Mae was a windrunner. Mae was very correct and always looked ring-ready; her gait was reaching and true even at that most revealing of gaits, a SLOW trot. Mae was the dam of four American champions and two ROM sires. Her grandson BIS Am/Can. Ch. Banchory Back Stop, ROM, and her double grandson Formal Notice, ROM, extended her influence in the breed. Mae was loyal to her best friend Half Moon throughout her life. I best remember Mae running joyously through the tall grass at the small Mississippi cabin called Shangri-La, she and her dear friend Half Moon outdistancing all the other Shelties as they came galloping back from the lake when I banged on the dinner pans. The grass has grown long over Mae's grave in western Oregon, but her legacy lives on.