Wednesday, September 20, 2017

Always Loved, Never Forgotten







This is Trooper as an old man.  He was a 15-inch tall Border Terrier dog with a 19-inch chest and as hard as nails in the hole. I loved this old boy and he was well trained and a joy at the house.  I stopped stripping Trooper when he was 13 or 14, and he eventually got as deaf as post.  Trooper was my second Border Terrier after Haddie.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Know the feeling. I am the same. Lost my boy at 17 in 2013 and put him in a zinc coffin made for dogs and he sits in state in my private chapel at the bottom of the garden. My 2 girls took off this week down a den and I though I had lost them but luckily they got out and one was found at the side of the road and the other one I found chasing chickens. Even a 19 inch chest can make a den. Laughable at the 14x14 as all my dogs are big and make it in dens. Try telling that to show judges even when they are in a working class and stand alone?!

PBurns said...

It depends on what you are chasing and what dug the hole. A big border like Trooper is pretty useless getting to the back of a tight pipe, and he almost never had the room to maneuver. His face was almost entirely cut off in one encounter because he was jammed tight in a pipe -- cost me over $3,000 to have it sewed back on, the biggest vet bill of my entire life. My little Russells can generally get to the critter and rarely take much stick because they can move underground. I have dug on too many dogs to want a big and hard working terrier, but I have loved every dog.