Sparkey's story......

One day, my daughter opened the back door to find a big, beautiful dog on her door mat sleeping. For days, she would find that dog there everytime she opened the door, the dog would not be "shoo'ed" away. The dog took to following her son everywhere, whenever he went outside, he would not leave the boys side until he went back in the house and then the dog would lay on the door mat and wait for the boy. Her husband did not approve. He does not care for animals that much, but the dog stayed and stayed until he grew on them. So, they took him to the vet and had him checked out, named him Sparkey. Sparkey is a black and white border collie mix. He was very afraid of the "man" of the house and would not allow him to touch him for a long time so my daughter came up with the idea of letting the man of the house feed him at night and told him to stand there and gently talk to him while he ate. Eventually, he was able to reach down and pet him while he ate and things progress from there. THEN, winter came. One very cold night, a freeze was expected, so the man of the house" went and got Sparkey and brought him inside out of the cold.... (This was a MAJOR step for the man, he does not like animals in the house.)

As you can guess, this happened years ago and Sparkey has won them all over as he does everyone he meets, still being the very grown now, teen age boys shadow. He now has his own bed IN the house and every now and then, even ending up in the Mom & Dad's bed and for sure on the sofa when they leave him inside while they are gone. The "man of the house" is REQUIRED now to scratch Sparkeys belly every night when he comes him from work before he can do anything else. He takes him to their property out in the country to let him run and play while he is mowing the grass out there. Sparkey is a one in a milion dogs that adopted THEM. Very few that I have heard of has choosen their own house and families but Sparkey sure did. He came and refused to leave!