Why I went halfway around the world for a four-legged friend
Julia Eppingstall was always obsessed with dogs but after falling in love with a unique breed of hound, she decided to take her passion one step further by embarking on a pooch pilgrimage.
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How do people choose the places they travel?
When I researched this recently, things like culture, history, family, food and natural wonders seemed to rate quite highly.
“Life-long obsession with a specific dog breed” didn’t seem to make an appearance.
From a young age, I’d always been dog-obsessed.
In fact, the only book my parents could get me to read was a DK Dog Encyclopedia.
I quickly fell in love with a unique breed that had an inconveniently long name, the Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever or “Toller” for short.
Known as intelligent, energetic and loyal family dogs, this breed was once referred to as the river duck dog hailing from Little River Harbour in Yarmouth County, Nova Scotia.
Initially bred as a hunting dog, the Toller has been uniquely adapted for water, having a distinctly red-orange water-resistant coat and webbed paws.
And in May 2018 my sister decided to take me on a journey to the land of their origin in Nova Scotia, Canada.
As if that wasn’t enough, my sister had a surprise in store.
She had made contact via Facebook with a lady named Dawn Fougere, who enthusiastically agreed to bring three of her Tollers down to the wharf to meet us as we disembarked our cruise ship.
My sister must have told Dawn she would struggle to keep this a secret (which of course she did, telling me on day three of our six days “at sea” crossing, what she had planned).
I was elated at the idea — what a phenomenal thing for both my sister and this amazing stranger to do.
But what actually happened when we arrived in Nova Scotia was a spectacle that managed to surprise not only me, but my sister as well.
Dawn did come down to the wharf with the three dogs she’d told my sister about.
But she had also organized the entire Toller community to bring their dogs down to the wharf to meet us as well.
That meant 35 of them!
We spent the day walking dogs through the streets of Nova Scotia.
Dawn (who has now become a life-long friend) then offered to drive us around sightseeing, before dropping us back right in front of the cruise terminal.
It was a beautiful show of community spirit, connectedness, generosity and warmth that spanned continents and generations.
It goes to show that when you travel based on the things you genuinely love — even when it’s something as unusual as the Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever — you get to share those passions with others around the world.