About my Dog

We've had our Cheyenne dog for ten years and she's eleven years old. We adopted her from the Humane Society. I always assumed that she is a mixed breed but really could not figure out what breeds she is, other than some hound. I never really tried to find out either. This lack of curiosity is odd in me. I call her my big red dog.

We actually found her in Petsmart and by accident. The Humane Society will showcase dogs there. We went in just to browse, found her, and fell in love with her. All they knew about her was that she lost her home because she "didn't get along with other pets."

We went home that day and got our Maggie dog, brought her back to meet Chey, and they loved each other from that moment! We adopted Chey.

The thing was, she had this evil, nasty, cat fixation. She

wanted to annihilate my cats. Our Fluffy cat got her trained, but it took about five years to accomplish. We have the Invisible Fence in

the house to create dog-free zones. Fluff had the physics figured out so she could move through the dog zones back to the safe zones before the dog could reach her, or she'd sit just beyond the dog's reach and appear impassive. She got the dog trained.

Cheyenne, otherwise, is fabulous and, whoever had her for her first year trained her beautifully.

When we adopted our cat Spike in March of 2008, I thought Chey would be fine, but she reverted to her old cat ways and he had to get her trained too. He, too, figured out about the indoor Invisible Fence, utilized the safe zones, and that desensitization took only about five days. Spike is so loving, he will rub up against Chey and Chey gets a really puzzled look about it.

So anyway, I was at - you guessed it - Petsmart last night and was browsing calendars. There is one of a breed of dog called Rhodesian Ridgeback, and dang! but that looks like my dog Chey! Although, I think she is still mixed with something else.

Then I found a book on lots of dog breeds and looked up the Rhodesian Ridgeback. It's a hunting hound dog from Rhodesia that was bred as a guard dog and used to hunt lions!!!! Good grief! The description of the breed's temperament is my Chey to a tee: intelligent, obstinate, requires excellent training, needs lots of exercise, prefers to sleep on the couch.

This dog is so even-tempered and well-mannered that, when people meet her, they want a dog. She's like the LL Bean dog. I cannot imagine her guarding or protecting us, she is so gentle. When I am home, the dogs and the cats are glued to me. I stumble over this dog about three times a week. I have actually fallen on this dog, sat on her, stumbled into her. She has never made an aggressive move in the ten years I have known her.

Also, I have always suspected that she is smarter than I am and that she owns me.

So I am amazed to find out her breed and her heritage and I think it's pretty cool. Those are actually links to two different web sites on the breed. The first is to the AKC web site, but there is only a drawing of the dog and one small photo. The other link is to Wikipedia, with more photos to compare to my dog.