My name is Jim. Jim Melton, if you must know.

And my name is Barbara Edelberg. We’re married

We are the two founding members of, and among the current board members of, Sheltie Rescue of Utah, Inc.

I/Jim am a kind of computer geek. I’m reasonably comfortable with hardware and software, but for the last 20-someodd years, I’ve been working in the realm of computer data management standards, including data query languages such as SQL and XQuery. More recently, I’m getting interested in the Semantic Web – you know, things like RDF, OWL, and SPARQL. Aren’t you glad you asked?

I/Barbara used to be a computer geek, but through years of therapy, I escaped. Now, my full-time job is running Sheltie Rescue of Utah (SRU to the “in crowd”). It’s far more than a full-time job, but we somehow keep it running fairly smoothly.

We’re multi-dimensional people. We love to scuba dive (and have had the great fortune to have dived all over the world). We own a 40′ sailboat, Dream SeQueL, that lives in Clearwater Beach, Florida (that’s a long commute from Utah!). Jim loves to backpack, as well as take day hikes with Barbara and whichever of the Shelties isn’t too old or infirm at the time.

But this blog is about rescuing Shelties and the responsibilities, joys, frustrations, heartbreak, and sheer poverty that goes along with it. There’s an old saying in the dog community: If you’re making money breeding dogs, you’re going about it the wrong way. Well, the rescue community can’t even imagine going there. We pour money out of our wallets into veterinarians’ offices, into pet food vendors, into cleanup supply sellers, and into the car repair shops. And what in blazes do we get in return?

Frankly, as Jim very often says, “This is the most rewarding single thing I’ve ever done in my life!”

Here are some of those things we’re likely to cover in this blog:

• How our current pack is doing; who they are, how they came be here, what we know about them.
• The day-to-day of rescue; challenges of a large household, inter-personal conflicts, feeding time, giving medication.
• The larger burdens; dealing with turn-ins, dealing with unprepared hopeful adopters, dealing with the shelters.
• The great sadnesses; when a rescue dies, when a rescue is returned, when (heaven forfend!) somebody gets hurt.
• The great joys; the perfect placements, living with seniors, coaxing new personalities out into the open.
• The frustrations; carpets that are never clean, the *&%^$# Sheltie voice, where did that <whatever> get put.
• The costs; money don’t grow on trees ya know, fundraising, other sources of revenue.

We don’t feel limited by those topics. You’ll undoubtedly find us blathering on and on about something completely unrelated, such as the latest airline fiasco that Jim had to endure, or the great new DIY! show that Barbara’s been following on satellite, or an unbelievable hike (or scuba dive or sail). Don’t worry…we’ll eventually come to our senses and get back to the main topic: Sheltie Rescue.