Cocoa, Finally A Family Dog!

We finally moved from that small apartment and bought a house in Rock Lake Village! Steve and I wanted a dog. My Dad brought home a Blue Tick Hound (Someone from Carbide gave him to Dad) and he only lasted a few days...Dad gave him to someone else.
One day when we were driving up the hill to our house, I saw a sign that said "Free Puppies" As soon as we got home, I rode my bike back down the hill and asked to see the pupples. One was so cute...long haired, kind of blond or light brown with a white collar of hair around his neck. Now I know he had some herding dog in him; maybe he was part Border Collie or Sheltie. It was a male and I loved him right away. I told the lady I wanted him and went home to convince my parents. Finally I got Mom to go look at him and she said "yes!" We had to wait a week or so until he was six weeks old. He was a good dog. He loved us kids and stayed right with us. I can remember when my brother would try to ski on those big skis down our tiny backyard hill, Cocoa would grab at his snowpants and pull him down the hill on his bottom. We all thought that he was afraid Steve would get hurt. He used to do the darnest thing....he would go through the woods and over the hill to another section of Rock Lake Village to the home of a lady who had Poodles that were show dogs. He could climb their 5 foot fence and once even bred their female. When he got in the fenced in area it was hard for him to get out. So finally they got our phone number and called us and told us to come get him. Of course I got to go get him and they were not very happy with him or us. We tried to keep him home but he loved that Poodle. I had to go get him a lot! When we bought a new house in St. Albans, my Dad pulled the same kind of trick that he did with our other dogs...he said he had a friend who was a farmer who had just lost his farm dog and really needed a good farm dog. So Cocoa moved to the farm and not with us. We did get to go see him once and he did seem happy.
In St. Albans the family did not get a dog until I went to college. Then it was a four week old rat terrior type dog who was named Tiki and lived with our parents until she was about 20 years old. I really didn't know her very well but she seemed like a good dog and she was well loved. In fact, my brother has a long haired Chihuahua now that he calls Tiki.