Tribble, with Attitude

Tribble was a labrador sharpei mix. She looked mostly like a yellow lab, but had short hair, curly tail, and lots of expression in her face. She also had a bit of an attitude. I remember when my dad was home with her. He said that she could only be in the kitchen or outside. We went shopping and came home to find my dad on the couch with Tribble curled up next to him as he read the paper. What a softy!
Tribble was smart from the get go. Mom and dad were rearranging their bedroom and had a large mirror that they set on the floor in the living room. Tribble saw the "other dog" and came to investigate. She danced and got up close to the mirror, nose to nose. Pretty soon, she took one paw and moved it behind the mirror. Realizing it was just her and wasn't a real dog, she showed me a disgusted look and walked off.
She and I went to doggy school and for a while there she was doing really well. I fell down on my part of keeping it going, so that went to heck (Mormon swearing). She also quickly seemed to have hip and shoulder issues, so having her sit versus lay down was pointless.
We had her outside a few times. She apparently doesn't consider herself to be an outdoor dog. At first, we heard a low "wuf" every few minutes. Then it was, "Wuff" for a few times. Her pitch started to get higher with a "WUFF" and then she was almost panicky outside. As we try to be good neighbors, we didn't let her bark outside too much. She ended up coming in. (I guess we are all softies).

Andre, the giant dog

We have had a number of dogs throughout the years. We had Andre, a German shepherd-husky mix. He was a big hairy mutt with lots of love for everybody. He could tell time. He would know when to go outside to be petted by the school kids. He was good at protecting the house, or so we thought. He kind of got busted one day. There was a kid cutting through our back yard. The kid gave him an ice cream cone for safe passage. Andre took the whole thing in his mouth, came inside and plopped it out onto the carpet (thanks for that). We visited my parent's house with Andre. The neighbors had a dog, well maybe it was a trained furry rat. It looked teeny tiny when it broke through the fence and found out that Andre was a big dog. Andre was about 90-110 lb dog. the neighbor dog was maybe 9-10lb. It came through the fence and looked up to see Andre. It then froze and began to shake. I finally went over and picked up the little tyke and took him back to the neighbors.
Andre started out as my brother's dog, but my sister inherited him when my brother moved. One of his main jobs was to help my sister. Sandra has Rhumatoid Arthritis and has difficulty getting up and down. Andre would help her to get up and down. He was also responsible for being in the bathroom to "shower" with Sandra. (this was actually to keep him out of stuff).