Dogs Dogs and More doggone Dogs!

As in many families, our family dog was an important part of our family. It just wasn't 'one' dog. Over the years we had many family pooches. Different children in our family remember different dogs and 'man's best friend' in our lives was everyones best friends(plural).

When Larry and I first got married we got our first dog within the first year. Jay was a baby and we wanted him to grow up with a dog. Our first faithful pet was a beautiful cocker spaniel. She was rust colored and papered. We loved her, she reminded me of Lady in "Lady and the Tramp". Unfortunately she died before Jay was big enough to remember her. She got distemper.

A few years went by before we got our second dog. Sherry was a toddler and we had just moved into our first house. This time it was a beagle. He was very cute when he was a puppy but since we were not experts in training puppies he soon became a biter and left a scar on my toddlers cheek. We had to give him away. Now I wish I had just taken him to a class and learned how to train him.

After awhile we were offered a beautiful german shepherd puppy. Because of his beautiful color we named him Smokey. He was a sweet dog and didn't have any of the bad habits that lots of dogs have. He didn't dig, he didn't bark needlessly, He didn't jump on the kids or bite. I loved him and had great hopes of his becomming a wonderful watch dog and family friend. Unfortunately my watch dog got stolen. The kids and I were broken hearted and put up fliers and everything but he was never found.

Sometime later we aquired Doby. He was a doberman mix and he had all the bad habits that smokey didn't have. We tried to keep him in the back yard because he was very protective and would bark and bite anyone who came near the kids. Larry even buried chicken wire under the fences so he couldn't dig out of the yard. Then he would either chew his way through or just leap the 6 ft fence. When the mailman reported us because he got bit we had to get rid of Doby.

Finally we got Tramp. She was a cute little poodle mix. We found her running around the parking lot at the grocery store. We checked the ads for weeks but never found her owner. She became ours and was with us many years. We bred her first with a poodle and got adorable puppies. We sold them all but one. He looked like a black miniture poodle. Victor, who was a little guy at the time named him Jaques. We bred her the next to a peekenees and had 'peek a poo' puppies. We sold them all and finally got her fixed. When we moved to Utah we found Tramp and Jaques both a good home together. Can you even imagine trying to move across two states with 8 kids including a screaming 18 month old and two dogs in a station-wagon?

Several years later we got our best friend and the dog most of the kids remember as 'the family dog'. We took the kids to the pound to find a dog and Mike picked out Happy. She was a Basset/Beagle mix and looked anything but happy! She had big sad eyes and floppy ears and she was the sweetest pet we ever had! We had Happy for many years. We even moved her with us across the country more than once. She lived with us in Utah then Ohio, then Washington DC and then back to Utah! When we moved to California in 1982 we left her with a family Sandi was staying with until I came back in a month to pick up Mark. I was going to bring her home with me then. The last week before I was to leave Sandi called and explained that Happy was gone. She used to go out each day for awhile and then she would come back, but one day she didn't come back. Sandi called animal control and tried to find her but she was gone. We only hope that she found a good home. The kids were heartbroken as were Larry and I. We didn't get another dog for years. She was the best doggone dog of all!