Page 54 - ShowSight - June 2020
P. 54

                 TERRY MILLER
DEJA VU BRIARDS
BREEDER INTERVIEW BY ALLAN REZNIK
Where did you grow up?
My family moved several times throughout my life. I was born in Evanston, Illinois. My parents, both born and raised in the Bronx, moved the family back east for my father’s career when I was five. We lived in the Bronx with my grandparents, then moved to north- ern New Jersey until my father bought a business in Cleveland, Ohio, when I was almost a teenager. Off we moved to Ohio, with my mother, a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker, kicking and screaming in protest.
My parents learned to love their life in Cleveland and it is where they stayed until they passed. After graduating from college in Philadelphia, I moved back to the Cleveland area for a dream job, where I have stayed ever since.
Do you come from a doggy family? If not, how did the interest in breeding and showing pure- bred dogs begin?
I came from a dogless family where, after years of begging, my family finally got a Toy Poodle... just in time for me to go off to school. My father liked dogs, while my mother had little use for them. Both my siblings are dog lovers, and are married to dog lovers. I was dog and horse crazy.
Like so many dog fanciers, I collected dozens of dog and horse books, read every book I could find at our small local library, made endless drawings of dogs and horses and am still in possession of some of my most favorite books, savored, reread and drawn in from my child- hood. I knew every dog and horse breed, could recite their traits, draw pictures of them and identify them on sight. I still cherish the stories by Marguerite Henry, Walter Farley, Albert Payson Terhune, Thelwell, and others.
I dreamed of a life revolving around dogs and/or horses. My college degree had nothing to do with animals. However, my first job out of college in 1976 was training dogs in Cleveland. My dream came true. So much for a college degree.
Because I had little more than dreams about dogs and shows, I had no concept of actually showing or breeding. I bought a pet Standard Poodle as my first dog after college, and then a second one a year later. It wasn’t until I started showing in obedience as a natural by-product of my job, that I realized there was a whole dog show world that overwhelmed and fascinated me. I dabbled in obedience competition with my Poodle and my boss’s Golden Retriever,
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