1993 with Petey

(the missus with our first dawg Petey)
YES, he was named after the Our Gang little rascals dawg.
7 months or so after we got married and were living on Chicago's near west side, twas July 4, 96 degrees and we went jogging at 4pm. 2 blocks from our apt. there was a dirty and cute little brown dog lying in the shade of a tree, very thin and covered with bloody bites on his head, and neighbors had been putting food and water out for him. I stopped in my tracks and asked the missus to go get some rope, because he was gonna be MY dog. (nobody in the neighborhood ever claimed to have lost him)
In the minutes that she was gone, I sat down 20 feet from him, and he moved away. I kept scooting over on my bottom until I could pet him. I just loved him so much from the first moment. The minute the missus got back with rope, I tied him up and we all stood. You could see the pride in his back, the confidence--he knew he had found his family, and we were going for a walk!
We took him home, and my bachelor cat Sammy was in the apt. and was like "NOOOOOOOOOOO!" but things were OK. We gave Petey his name and some cat food, which he wasn't much interested in (the neighbors who had been leaving out food had left out VERY expensive food).
I gave him a bath in the tub and he looked great. The bites he had suffered were actually superficial, and we walked up to the vet the next day. The vet figured he was part beagle at about 22 pounds, maybe part corgi, and YES, he could bark. The vet thought he was about 6, and sadly, when you would reach out to pet him, he would duck his head. Somebody was used to smacking him around, but as the years went on, he stopped worrying that we would hit him. We took the subway home with Petey. He was small, and we just walked through the turnstile and onto the train.
Petey was a perfect dog. We walked everywhere in Chicago, day and night, and he was a killer. Anytime somebody came near us, he growled and snapped. One night somebody was trying to steal stuff off the back porch in this pic, and the missus let him out and he went bananas chasing the guy away. More than once we were walking in the country and a dog of any kind came after us, he snapped them away. After a German shepherd tried to attack us in the street one day, Petey chased it to its yard and pooped on its foot. Our vet told us dogs don't look in the mirror.
For all that, he was totally cuddly and sweet, the absolute best dog.
He almost lived forever, died just about age 19, one month after we moved from New Hampshire to this house in 2006. He is buried out back. He was totally healthy and happy up to his last day, and it is like he wanted to get us settled in our new home before he moved on.
My SIL found this pic and gave it to us Saturday.
(all of our dogs and cats are strays with sad stories, and all of them are wondefully behaved, healthy and happy--we are really fortunate. Readers here know that Penny the little beagle moved in with us 2 years ago, and although she never met Petey, she is so similar to him it's amazing, except she is not as fierce with strangers).