Four years ago Misty and Kelly got Checkers. 

Checkers with her summer ‘do’

At the time Checkers was five years old and had been abandoned at the home she had always lived in since she was born.  It seems that the people who used to own and love her decided to move to town and didn’t or couldn’t take their dogs, an old, old dog and Checkers (who at five wasn’t really a young dog).

By the time the neighbor lady, a mile or so away, realized that the dogs had been abandoned the really old dog was dying from starvation and Checkers was a bone.  She started taking food to the dogs and put an ad in the paper to find a home for Checkers.  That is when Kelly and Misty stepped in.

Checkers is a lovely friendly dog.  She likes to ‘farm’ with us, run with the four-wheeler as Terry builds fence, and take care of her babies (Bladen, Linkin, and Tallen) and her yard.  She is very protective of the kids!  Very! Checkers is now 9 years old.

The first year Checkers would NOT leave her food bowl ….and she grew FAT!  But who wouldn’t if you had been starved for a long time!?

Fuzzy Doddle (Dude) Brown was a dumped dog at our place!  Grrrrrr! Fuzzy was probably between 5-7 years of age at the time someone dumped him. We have had him for three years now, so he is somewhere between 8 and 10. 

I think Dude must have been an older ‘farming/ranching man’s dog and the man died.  The man’s kids didn’t want the dog so they just took him to the country and dropped him off.    It took Misty and I three weeks to catch him, he would wait a long the side of the road and look and look.  I think the only reason we finally got him he was staved and thin, thin, thin.  He normally weighs 30 pounds and he weighed 15 pounds.  I hate how some people treat animals!!!!!!

To this day Fuzzy becomes terrified to ride in the back seat of the car, (but he loves the truck) he shakes, trembles and pants so hard I feel very bad for him.  But I take him, so he can have new adventures, smell new smells, and gain confidence in traveling.  He is always much relieved when we get home.

Why I think he was an older person’s dog is how he acts, he loves to ride on the hay stack, he is good with the cows (can herd with the best of them) , loves to round up the chickens when I tell him too, had to learn to tolerate little kids.

Now he likes to walk down to Misty’s and hang out with the little kids, he lets them sit and ride on him and Misty lets him come in the house and play.  Then he walks home, some times Checkers comes with him.

They have a good life with us, but they sure went through some hard times