A Few Dogs Here and There!

When we were first married we lived in Indiana. There were a few dogs that tried to join our family but none seems to work out very well. We felt sorry for two beagle puppies who were at the pound, so we took them home. A friend of ours was so mad he missed them and wanted to train them for rabbit hunting so we gave them to him for a German Shepherd puppy. He was a cute puppy we named Shadow...he was quite a chewer.....Chewed the rocker right off our chair! He got very territorial and didn't want anyone around us....since there were lots of children around the neighborhood and he didn't seem to like any of them we decided he wasn't the puppy for us....so we gave him back to the owner.
One day the fire department came to our street...actually the house across the street....but it wasn't on fire! There was an angry mother dog with her puppies under the neighbor's house. They used the water hose to get the poor puppies out. I felt so sorry for them...so did all the neighbors! The little puppies came rolling out like balls. We all picked one up and I couldn't let mine go. Most of the other neighbors couldn't either. I named this puppy Wags and he was perfect. He looked like a baby Collie or Sheltie...kind of reminded me of Cocoa, only he was more the true Collie color. He was a good dog but he did have an awful accident...he chewed through a fan cord and got a terrible electrical burn. He was at the vet's for about a week...my mom had to pay for it...we didn't have any money. By the time he was 5 months old he had recovered and was doing well. I had him outside and somehow he got outside our yard and was following the school kids. He darted out in the road and a car hit and killed him. One little boy came and told me and wanted his collar....at first this upset me....then I said, "Yes you can have it." I was very pregnant and the boy said his father would bury Wags for me. Before too long we were really wanting to try a dog again. So this time we started looking in the paper. There were some Collie puppies advertised and we decided to go just see them. Of course you know what that means....we came home with a puppy! He was a beautiful blond colored Collie. Then we got a job opportuntiny in Michigan and moved there. It seemed perfect we rented a place on a small farm right out of town and everyone was happy until we got our first fuel bill...it was $500 and we did not have near enough money to live there. So we rented an apartment in town and of course we were not allowed to have dogs. We tried to get family members to take Colonel who was just a wonderful Collie dog but it didn't work out. Finally our mailman told us he would like to buy him and he did and Colonel spent the rest of his days in a very nice home up at the lakes. The mailman told us that he loved it there and he swam all summer long and chased chipmonks and was a wonderful dog. Anyway we lived in the apartment for about a year and then we bought a house in town. We had cats for a while and I went back and finished College. For graduation I wanted an Irish Setter....I had seen them at a dog show and loved them. I got one and named her Heidi. I took her to to Obedience Classes and she hated it. In fact she didn't like living in town at all...she was really a hunter....a true bird dog and she kept running away and going to this certain field and chasing and stalking birds. Finally the man who owned the field told us he would buy me another Irish Setter and he would keep Heidi and use her for hunting. So that is how I got Trapper. At the same time we had an opportuntiny to buy an older Irish Setter that was basically an older show dog. His owners were getting a divorce and didn't want each other to have him. His name was Rhett and he was a wonderful dog too. We all lived happliy for many years....I even tried showing the dogs and they both did well. But showing was hard....you had to travel to shows every weekend and that was too hard with kids. We bought another Irish Setter female named Nelaphant and started having puppies. Once we had 13 puppies. They were always beautiful puppies. People came all the way from Detroit and Canada to buy our puppies. About that time our daughter Kelly came home from school one day and asked if she could have a puppy....a little cockapoo. I said ask your Dad...thought for sure he would say no....but he didn't. That's how we got Andy. She was little, black and white, and turned out to be the boss of all the dogs.....even the big Irish Setter males. No one ate until Andy was done eating. They would all cuddle up together and sleep. Andy was usually in the house and the Irish Setters were in the kennel or yard. All these dogs lived long lives. After they were gone we didn't have any pets for a long time.