About Sandy

My mother took me to my first dog show when I was eight. This fascinated me and I immediately wanted to show our standard poodle. Mom explained the many reasons why this wasn't possible and I understood but there was a little voice in my head that said, "Some day I'm going to do that." Of course, being eight, the next week I was telling everyone that I wanted to be a jockey.

I always loved to draw and filled sketchbooks with an attempt at professionalism. Mom later told me that the family expected me to go to art school, but I took another path.

As a teenager, I became interested in Scientology. I liked the practical aspects of the religion, and Mr. Hubbard voiced many opinions I had always privately held. It just made sense to me. I went to Copenhagen and studied there for many years to become a pastoral counselor. I met my husband in Copenhagen and we started married life in Munich, Germany.

My daughter was born in Germany, a true "Munchener Kindl". Jason was born here in Clearwater. As the kids got older I realized that I wanted to teach them myself and so I drew on my experience as a counselor, took some courses and opened up my own school. This was also when I began showing and breeding Silky Terriers.

Success did me in after 10 years at the school. It got too big and I found myself sitting in the front office all day long doing paperwork. So I sold the school in 1994 and went back to my old profession of pastoral counselor, but this time with a specialty of working with children.

It started to occur to me that it would be fun to take up my drawing again, but with a twist, as I also had years of experience in working with and showing my dogs. I contacted a local editor and she worked me over the coals until I had a "voice" in my writing and illustrating. The result was "How To Turn Your Dog Into a Show-Off" published by Doral in 2002.

In 2008 I was a Maxwell Nominee for my dog portrait work. I have an expanding portfolio of canine fine art, dog cards and a tickle for people’s funny bone in my dog comic “Funny Dogs, Funny People”.

Through it all I continue to show my Silkys. We just completed our 87th AKC Champion, including Winner’s Bitch at the Silky Terrier National Specialty in 2010 and Award of Merit at Nationals this last June.

The Clearwater Kennel Club hired me last January to do portraits of all fourteen of the Group 1 winners of their two 2011 shows.

In August my second book "Dogs 101: Yorkshire Terriers" was published by TFH.

I also continue my work as a pastoral counselor, a sort of "super nanny", traveling all over the world around 300 days a year, working with kids and their parents.

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