I love dogs.  I especially love MY dogs.  I’ve been raised with some good ones.

I came along after Misty.  Because of her I thought that EVERY dog would run away the second you opened the front door.  She was afraid of thunder and fireworks.  Since she bolted a lot from the house my Dad would set off firecrackers in the front yard to get her to come home and she would come running from up the street and run straight into the bathtub to hide.  She was a good puppy dog.

Patty was…special. She was a rescue and was also afraid of and/or excited by many things.  We spent half her life trying to figure out what happened to her in the early days.  Near as we could figure she was tortured by a vacuum by a man with a beard.  Then again, using that logic it would mean that my brother was tortured by picking up sticks in the yard and emptying the dishwasher.   Patty loved a good bone and would savor them till for whatever reason it was time – time to chew it away. She also loved pizza and even almost ate my brother while trying to get a bite of his piece once.  Patty also had the loudest, most CONSISTENT bark for blocks.   She was a good puppy dog.

Wiley Ann Benoit…was special, smart, beautiful, funny, fiercely loyal, sassy and my sister.   Not to say that the other dogs weren’t these things, but Wiley had a way about her that let you feel like you were dealing with somebody more complex.  In many ways she was smarter than me.  She knew multiple languages and would actually heel and follow other commands.

She knew how to speak her mind, I think she could swear, and she loved men – I feel like in those ways we could relate.  She would play hide and seek and had favorite toys that she never destroyed.   When I first met her, she threw me up against the refrigerator with her paws on my chest barking in my face.  It was either “Hello I’ve heard so much about you we are going to be great sisters!” or it was “This is MY home who the hell are you walking in like you own the place get the hell out!” but we were able to move on regardless.

I could go on and on and on about all the amazing things Wiley accomplished in her 8 years just like anyone who has a dog can brag about their own.  Luckily, by the time Wiley came around we all had digital cameras and so we have plenty of pictures to look back on.  These photos do no justice to her beauty or her bark.  She was a good puppy dog…