Man or Woman's Best Friend

During our happy, blissful married life Mr. Lucky and I have had over a dozen dogs. At some point I’ll blat about many of them but first....

Let me tell you all about Fred. He was some sort of a Heeler. If you read up on Heelers, as I did, you’ll find that they are smart, trainable, good with kids, and require very little grooming. He even responded to his new name-Fred. All of that worked for me.

Fred appeared in the neighborhood one spring day; a full grown dog with a collar, but no identification or rabies tag. A notice on the radio and a call to the police about a lost dog didn’t turn up an owner. He soon took up residency under our deck. The neighbors had a bunch of kids that the dog seemed to find necessary to watch. Watch them he did. There is a small stream of water in our backyard that I like to call a creek (in Idaho that’s crick) and that’s a stretch. It’s really a glorified ditch. Anyway, if the kids were anywhere near the creek (crick) Fred was on duty. Watching. Some days it was a full time job. They were busy kids.

Lucky for us he was well trained. Around our house we are what you might call dog training challenged. We did manage to housebreak our kids and they both learned to use silverware. So if guests popped in we would invite them to have a chair. You know...something like this. "Come on in. Sit down." Fred would immediately sit. He was a gentle dog who tolerated female dogs and tried to run off any male dog that happened to come along. The big male lab-cross who lived in the neighborhood was not discouraged by Fred. He pretty much ignored him. Fred just had to suck it up.

We discovered on our first attempt at a road trip with him that Fred was not too keen on riding in the cab of a pickup. We were less than a mile from home when he had a bit of a panic attack. Nothing to do but take him home. Home was a test, too, at first. He refused to come inside, choosing instead to take up residency under our deck. That became his domain. And his alone. Our current dog, to this day, doesn’t go under the deck. Evidently Fred told her to stay out.

Fred loved chips....Doritos, potato, Sun Chips. He was introduced to them by the neighbor kids. The sound of opening a bag of chips would get him running for a city block.

He was not a bit particular about his diet. Fruit, vegetables, and as I mentioned, chips, and dog food. Even cat food. One time we caught him red-handed eating the neighbor’s cat food right on their back porch. One of his favorites was blackberries. He would pick his own. The same with cherry tomatoes, but they were not so dangerous as blackberries.

Fred’s life with us overlapped with a couple of other female dogs. One of them, Sadie, had to have medication a couple of times a day. When her pills came out, so did the cheese as a way to disguise the pill. Sometimes Fred got his cheese first. Not being as well-trained as Fred, Sadie was not likely to come when she was called. When we did get her into the house she was rewarded with a "come-in cookie". Fred figured that out early on. He always got one, too. I’m pretty sure he explained this procedure to our present resident canine, Bonnie. She goes directly to the cupboard when she comes in. He passed on several other good behavior traits to Bonnie. Considering that we are challenged in the area of dog-training we were grateful for Fred’s help.

Fred developed a tumor. It was on his upper jaw and was pretty much inoperable.. You can figure out how this ends. He gave us many years of enjoyment as dogs do. I like to think that we made a good life for him during those years. Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of him to share on this post. Well, any pictures that I can locate. You’ll just have to trust me when I say he was a good-looking heeler.