My parents adopted Latke as a puppy about a year before I was born. She was a shepherd mix of some kind and I remember her being around a lot when I was pretty young, but she died when I was seven.
I recall that she could be walked off-leash, like I trained Sharav to do much later, and I believe that she also had weird habits with food.
It was because of Latke that I had wanted to adopt a German shepherd, but since I learned that Sharav was a Malinois, I have never stopped wondering if Latke may have been part Malinois as well. In any case, it’s no accident that Sharav and Latke looked so strikingly similar.
![My mother introducing me to Latke when I was two days old. Washington DC, April 1981.](https://i0.wp.com/sharav.dog/wp-content/uploads/JILL-LATKELU-NATHAN-040281-jpeg.webp?resize=1456%2C1079)