Three pictures and a story about Mandy

 I took some pictures out of the back door tonight and then cropped them.  I think this one came put pretty nice. You can't tell that what looks like the ground is really the roof of the neighbor's house.  I had to crop the electric wires out of it.

 Ginny found some pictures and scanned them. This was taken in 1972.  I am holding Mandy.  She was a wonderful dog. I was teaching at Whittier Elementary School and the School Secretary (Nan) told me about a Sheltie who had a litter of pups that were not purebread.  The people who had them could not be bothered with finding them a home and were going to have them destroyed.  I told Nan to have them bring me the dogs and I would find them homes.

I advertised them for the tremendous amount of $5 each.  Not much but we figured that if people paid for them they would value them more.  I don't remember how many pups there were (I think 5) and the mother.  All of them went fairly quickly except for the last one.  A good friend (Steve Oates) placed the last one for us.  Then we found out that Ginny really wanted to keep her so we got her back and she turned out to be a "Superior dog"-  She did love the garbage but we soon learned to keep it where she couldn't get at it.  See what I mean?  Superior dogs train their owners.

She was a sweet loving dog and calmer than her sisters and brothers but they were all very good dogs.  One of the people at my school took a boy and I got to see him after he had grown up.  He was more rambunctious than Mandy but still a great dog.  I sometimes wonder what kind of people allow dogs to get pregnant and then don't take responsibility for them.

At that time we lived in a house that was in a pretty quiet neighborhood and Mandy liked to explore.  We had a long leash that we put on her but sometimes she would slip the leash to go exploring which meant that we worried and would go out calling "Mandy" at the top of our lungs.  I finally decided that perhaps I needed to have a talk with her about coming when called.  I put the leash on her and when she got to the end of the rope I would say "Mandy come here!" in a firm voice. Then I would pull the leash to me and when she got up I would "praise my puppy" and give her a little treat.  It took less than an hour to teach her how to come and from then on I just yelled "Mandy come here!" and she came a running.

She was loved by all of us and she loved us all.  But she was really Ginny's dog and they spent a lot of time together.  She was a good dog and except for certain escapades  - like eating a loaf of banana bread that was cooling in the middle of the kitchen table she didn't get into a lot of trouble.  She moved with us from the Douglas residence to the Eisenhower one and we all loved her. I am sure Ginny still misses her as do I.  She is with Mother.  That is my Mom on the right side of the picture, but that is a story for another time.

 Here is another picture out the back door. It was a beautiful sunset.