They Even Protect Our Neighbors!

by Tom Carpenter
(Olive Branch, Ms.)

Sadly, This fella passed away this year at 14 years old. He was a wonderful friend to me and my whole family. His name was Chaser, Red tri-color that looked like a big ole brown bear.

When he was about 4 years old, my neighbor called me and asked me to come and get my dog out of her yard because he was playing with her 3 year old child and knocking her down. I told her I was on the way (we live in the country and their house is roughly 70 yards from mine. I thought it was odd when she called because Chaser was trained as a pup not to go off of our property. On many ocassions they had even commented about the fact that he would sit at the property line and watch them, but never crossed the line.

As I was stepping off of my deck, I saw the little girl walking across the yard, and sure enough, he walked up to her and sort of rammed her with his shoulder and knocked her down. I called his name and he turned and looked at me but did not come, which was also very odd!

He knocked her down once more before I could get there which is about the time I realized what was going on! My neighbor was standing on her porch shouting at him to go away as I got to little Emily and picked her up. Chaser sat right down at my feet and started licking the child on the leg. About 30 feet away was a huge fire ant hill and the little girls ball had rolled right up next to it. HE WAS NOT LETTING THE CHILD NEAR THAT HILL!!

I carried the child up to her mom and as I was explaining to her what we had just experienced, Chaser brought the little girl her ball!

My neighbor could not believe it, and her husband came over that night to thank me, and brought a gift certificate for dog food for Chaser!

We miss having him there naturally, but have many fond memories to hold on to. Because of Chaser, I became a dedicated Aussie lover. We have a 2 year old female black tri who is a joy, and now, a 4 month old red tri who is already learning as fast as I can teach him.

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