Cruiser was born 20th September 1994 and was a son of Aust Grand Champion Crossfire Claim To Fame BSCL1 and Kleerskye Waxwing BSCL11. At 9 weeks of age he was purchased by Drs Stephen and Susan Waite and their daughter Johanna as a pet. Cruiser was such a beautiful dog that I talked them into allowing me to campaign him in the show ring. Without going into too much detail he got his Australian Championship title. He was also campaigned in the specialist ring, received his Breed Survey Class 1 classification and received the grading of Excellent Merit at Queensland’s 1st State Breed Evaluation. He was very much like his grandsire Ch Prima Zorba.
At nearly 4 years of age he got the dreaded gastric torsion. Luckily I had, only a few months earlier, told Stephen and Susan the symptoms as one of my dogs had survived torsion so had given them a detailed list of what to look for and they got him to the vet immediately. Unfortunately, Cruiser didn’t seem to bounce back as well as would be expected. Some 8 months later (while I was baby sitting him because his owners were overseas) he became quite ill. It was Good Friday but I contacted the vet that the owners used and took him there. X-rays were taken and he was admitted to hospital. The vet asked if there was anyway of contacting the owners. I told him I would contact them and get them to ring the vet. I didn’t know what the matter was as the vet (understandably) could not tell me what had been discovered as I was not the legal owner (just the breeder and baby sitter). Well the next story is unbelievable. Cruiser had a swab inside his stomach that had been accidentally left there 8 months earlier when he had torsion. He had to have emergency surgery and once he recovered he started to gain weight and come to his own.
Cruiser was retired from the ring to be part of the family, not that he wasn’t when he was campaigned as he came to the shows then went home so it was just an outing for him. His owners, Stephen and Susan are unbelievable people and the type of people everyone wishes their puppies to go to. Nothing was too much trouble for their beloved child and even after it was diagnosed that he had the swab inside him, their attitude was that “they saved his life”. He was fine for the next few years and then because of the scar tissue his stomach became very sensitive and for the last few years of his life he went through stages where he couldn’t keep his food down. This did not deter his owners as they did everything in their power to make Cruiser comfortable. We decided what we would do was blend all his food and this helped so all his diet from then was processed through a blender.
Cruiser lost his battle for life @ 11:30am, Saturday, 18th August, 2007. My condolences go to his other family who off course are struggling to come to terms with their loss.
These two pictures were taken when he was nearly 12 years of age.
This was taken In May 2007
This one was only taken the week before he passed away.
A beautiful animal that did have a full life and gave his owners some wonderful memories but it is never easy to say goodbye to them. I am probably biased but I truly believe Cruiser was one of the nicest sables I have ever seen.
