One night, the dogs barked too much, and Dad got fed up. He loaded the three male dogs into the truck and drove a long way away, and left them on the side of the road. I worried about what would become of them, but as it turned out, the dogs were smarter than we'd given them credit for. Over the next day or two, everyone was upset about what he'd done. Then he went driving to Priest Lake one day and the dogs heard his truck and met it alongside the road, Kodiak in the lead, grinning and wagging his tail. He brought them back. Meanwhile, Sheba had her puppies. Doug and Donna picked a pretty tricolored female, named her Princess, and took her home at 4 weeks old. We named and trained the rest as I always had, by tossing nuggets of dog food and training the puppies to catch the food in mid air, and then tossing it only to the puppies who sat down on command, and most of them found homes. Two did not, Happy and Shy, both males, both almost solid black, both named for their dispositions. I loved Shy; he never caused any trouble, and I enjoyed earning his trust rather than simply having it handed to me. Happy's enthusiasm for life was infectious. They were both good dogs. When Happy and Shy were a few months old, all the adult dogs went running off as they often did. They didn't come back. I hoped they'd find a way back as they had before, but we never saw them again. Now it was just Happy and Shy, and after a while, Shy found a home and then it was just Happy.

The gap in our dog population was quickly filled, though. Dad was driving one day when he saw a dog wandering alongside the highway, a black Cocker Spaniel. It looked lost, so he brought him home. As soon as he brought the dog home, it promptly pooped on the floor. Dad announced that whoever cleaned the poop up could have the dog. I didn't any pets now, and no one else wanted to clean up the poop, so I promptly cleaned up the mess and claimed my new dog. I called him Curly. Curly was sort of irritable. He acted as though he wasn't used to being in a family with children. If you touched him near his rear end, he'd growl. He needed a companion, and so did I. It didn't take me very much work or time with him before he was friendly and calm with me. He and Happy became the best of friends. They'd romp around in the snow, Curly grabbing Happy's long tail, and Happy glomming onto Curly's long ears, as his tail had been docked. Curly turned from a crotchety old dog into a relaxed, pleasant, family dog. The change in him was so dramatic that we decided to change his name to Sonny. Sonny was allowed to stay indoors at night, because he seemed less hardy than Happy and the other dogs we'd had. Even Dad liked him.