This is Shep and me. I don't know how old Shep was, but I guess I was about 4-5. Cute little bugger, isn't he. Me, not the dog! Shep was really my grandfather's dog but I always thought he was just keeping him for me. Sheppard's make excellent members of the family. They're gentle, have a great disposition and are very smart. This was taken on the porch of my Aunt Evelyn's house in Ronceverte.

Sam was a stray in Alderson. David Shields named him from a dog he saw in a movie. When I took him in I kept the name. Sam had a tail that curled over his back, and after we got him, I notice a lot of other dogs in town that looked like Sam with the same curled tail over their backs. I think he was boosting the population of dogs in Alderson. Sam lived under the back porch in a enclosed place we made for him, and like all dogs then, he ran freely, until the town made an ordnance to keep all dogs chained up. I can still see Sam sitting on the back porch chained up. I felt bad for him. Occasionally Mother let him in to jump on my bed to get me up for school.

Briggs was our third dog. (Pictured with Mother and my oldest daughter) Linda's folks got him for us. He was supposed to be a full blood Dachshund but turned out to be half Cocker Spaniel and Dachshund. He was bigger than a Dachshund, but his nose was blunt like the Spaniel. He helped keep the kids out of the kitchen while Linda cooked, by biting at their toes.  He must have bitten my son many, many times, but Curtis aggravated the bejeebers out of him. Linda told the doctor once she would have bitten him too, if she were Briggs. He lived 16 years, but got so he couldn't move so we had to put him down. First time I wept for a dog.

This is Midget, a Lhasa Apso. 12 pounds of dumb and mostly hair. Most dogs bark when people come to the house. She barked when they left. That's not her real photo because she wasn't with us long enough to have her picture made. After several times whizzing on the rug, climbing up on the dinning room table and licking the butter, we came home one day and found her nose print in the saran wrap on a chocolate cake where she tried to get to it. Linda scooped her up and took her somewhere and paid them 25.00 to take her.

We bought Oska from a farm just south of Damascus, Maryland. Her left eye had deformity between the cornea and the pupil. She still had peripheral vision, but not straight ahead. My granddaughter Regan called her the "Little Dog With The Pretty Blue Eye". Oska had a habit of jumping on the bed and pulling back the covers and sleep underneath them. When we would go out of town, she did the same thing where ever we left her. She came to AZ. with us, but after a couple of months we had to put her down because of her back. That was rough and I felt guilty after that.

This is Minnie. She was suppose to be a miniature Dachshund but she's just in between a miniature and a regular Dachshund. We call her a "tweenie". We got her a year after Oska was put down. I lamented so much Linda broke down and got Minnie. Bless Linda's little heart! Just like all  Dachshunds she runs her mouth, all the time. But just like all of our dogs, we love and treat them like members of the family. In some cases, better. Minnie will probably be the last dog we get, maybe.