Sam was our first true pet. We lived with my grandmother, and she didn't want any pets around. Unfortunately, as she got older, she became senile, but after a few years, my dad felt we could safely get a pet. My mom worked with a gal who bred Irish Setters, but they were not champion breeds. From the last litter, there was one puppy left over - the runt. He was two months old and ready to be sold, but would probably never sell because he was a runt.

Do you think Sam was a runt? He may not have had championship conformation, but he looked great!

I don't know what his siblings looked like, but he was a beauty to us! I was around 11 or so when he was brought home. He was all legs! LOL

Right from the start, he had a sense of humor. When he was being transitioned between paper training and going outside, he had to go so bad one day he couldn't hold it. He planted one paw on a tiny scrap of paper and let loose! LOL

Sam loved to do "silly". Rolled over on his back, his feathering and legs every which way, he looked silly and he knew it. He would also kick and jerk his legs up and down, for some unknown reason - it just felt good, I guess! But it really was one of the silliest things to see! Kind of like John Cleese doing his silly walks on Monty Python! LOL

When he would lay like this, we also would grab his chest between thumb and fingers, and shake him gently back and forth, declaring "Here's a turkey! Who wants some of this white meat?" I don't think he understood what we were saying, but he knew he was being played with!

We allowed him on the furniture, as you can see. We didn't know how much damage his claws would eventually do, but it was still worth it in the long run. One of the things I loved was when you would sit on the couch, and he would lay down against the back cushion, and bury his nose and paws behind your butt. Maybe like a security thing? I don't know, but it made us feel good!

He loved people food. I know you're not supposed to feed animals people food, but we did. He ate everything except bananas, Jello and peas. Some canned dog foods come in a "Country Stew" type with peas in them. When he finished eating, all the peas were left in the bowl, unbroken, and licked clean!

After a few years, he got a bowl of cereal with milk for breakfast and a slice of bread. He was 13 1/2 when he died, so I don't think it did him much harm. :-)

We used to brag how Sam would eat anything with ketchup on it. One day, a girlfriend and I had gotten hot dogs from a fast food place. She had gotten hers with everything, which included a sport pepper. Since she didn't eat those, I asked her for it to demonstrate Sam's love for ketchup. I smeared it liberally so it was totally coated and offered it to Sam. He grabbed it, so I pulled it back, thinking the demonstration had been proven. Unfortunately, the pepper snapped off the stem and he swallowed it, whole. It came back, whole, about an hour later, and I never felt so bad in my life! :( I never did that again.

As a puppy, when he went through his teething stage, he ate, chewed, gnawed and nibbled on everything! We had to overload him on chew toys. But he shredded ordinary dog toys rapidly, especially squeak toys. The only thing that worked there was to get baby squeak toys because they were a heavier plastic.

One thing he had a passion for was chewing the strings that outlined many pieces of furniture. The only problem was he also ate them, whole, and several times we had to assist him in passing those strings. :-(

This eventually became known as "Sam's Chair" and he slept there most often. My mother re-padded the ends of the arms and slip-covered it. But it was still HIS chair! LOL He allowed you to perch on the front of the seat. And if you were sitting in it when he wanted to sleep, he would pester you until you scooted forward so he could get in behind you and curl up.

Here's a picture of him around age 4. The chair has been slip-covered and he is standing on the seat of the chair, and is draped over the back of it. This put him at perfect petting level. :-)

Sam thought like a human being in many ways. He understood words, so eventually we had to spell certain ones, like o-u-t became t-u-o, until he learned that, too! He knew people by name, and would play hide-and-seek with us.

Sam was very trainable, as he was very good-natured and patient. In the first picture, I am using a dog biscuit to teach him to "Take it nice!" from my mouth. I may have been 16 or 17 in that picture? Not sure. In the second picture, we had showed him how to "give paw".

Sam loved to play Hide 'n' Seek! We would make him sit, and cover his eyes with our hands. One of us would go hide, and then we would let him go and tell him to find that person. He would go creeping and stalking, peeking around corners, until he found the hider! After doing this a few times, we then hid Sam. Someone would cover their eyes, then we'd take Sam to a corner or behind a piece of furniture, and hold him there. The seeker would then walk around calling Sam, who always wanted to come out of hiding, but we held him there. Then, when the seeker finally found Sam, Sam would get so excited, he'd have to go outside to pee! LOL

When he was happily excited, he got the goofiest look on his face, his tail would go around in circles like a helicopter, and when he ran, his back feet stayed together like they were tied, so he hopped. Cute!

Sam's nose started off black. You can see that in earlier pictures. But he loved burying things in the yard and he would often come in with a bloody nose from scraping hard clumps of dirt. Burying things was kind of an obsession with him. He would "bury" cookies or toys in the house, behind curtains or furniture. If you found it and showed it to him, he would refuse to take it or even look at it. It was still buried as far as he was concerned! I can still hear the "squeak, squeak" of his wet nose burying something on the kitchen tile!

Every new person was under threat of being licked to death. But let that person try and leave, and the guard dog would appear!

Sam was very possessive of my mother. We could go up to her and stroke her arm and say "My Mommy" and he would go ballisitic! If we pretended to hit her and she pretended to cry, he was all over her, trying to kiss her.

He also loved his little throw rug, which was situated on the kitchen/dining room threshhold. We could say "my rug" and he would pick it up, dragging it between his legs! LOL

There was one dog food Sam loved - Special Cuts. These looked like chunks of raw meat, with red and white streaks. He would take one piece, go back to his throw rug, and toss it around and play with it before finally eating it. Then he'd come back for another piece, only he didn't quite make it all the way back to the rug this time. He would keep doing this for a half dozen pieces or more, staying closer and closer to the dish, until he finally just stayed.

He knew when my sister came home from school - she was his second favorite. At the appropriate time, he'd go out on the back porch to wait for her. My mom would say, "Must be time for Vicki to get home." and sure enough, within a minute, she was there!

Also, he knew the sound of the family car. So when he got on the couch and planted his chin on the back, looking out the window, we knew my mom had gotten within a few blocks of home! We have one picture where Sam is sitting on the couch, looking out. His tail is swishing back and forth over the edge of the couch seat, and you can see my mom walking from the car. :-)

My dad taught Sam a cute trick. We lived in an old house with a gas fireplace that had been disconnected. As children, we enjoyed playing with the chimney, sticking things up there, just as my dad had done when he was a child. One year, for Christmas, we had gotten Sam a chew stick that was about a foot long and an inch thick. It was sealed in plastic, on a piece of cardboard, and wrapped up in Christmas wrapping, but was still slender. My dad called us all into the living room and told us to watch. He then said, "Sam, where's Santa?" and Sam went to the fireplace and stuck his nose up the chimney! That was a great trick to show people for many years, until we moved from that house.

I don't have a picture of that trick, but the ones above show him opening up one of his presents, and later he fell asleep with it in his mouth.

One of Sam's favorite toys was a "sockie". This was a pair of socks that had been knotted in the center and he loved to play tug-of-war with it. He'd throw it in the air and catch it himself, too. We would throw it for him to catch, which he loved. One day, we threw it, and it went up next to a small lighting fixture spotlight, and came back down, but Sam was still looking up. Sam had missed it coming down, and thought the spotlight was his sockie! Until we moved, whenever you asked him where the sockie was, he'd look at the ceiling!

When he was 12, he had to have a growth removed from his eyelid, or he would go blind from the scratching. So, we had the surgery done. Sam was very unsteady on his feet, he could barely walk afterwards. The vet assured us Sam was just getting over the anesthesia yet. But he never regained the full use of his legs. The vet then admitted that it was possible Sam had had a stroke while under anesthesia. :-(

Since Sam did not appear to be in any pain, we dealt with the situation. For the next year, we stood at the bottom of the stairs in case he needed spotting, coming down. Fortunately, it was only 6 stairs. After that, though, he needed to be carried down the stairs. He could still walk, but it was difficult. Still, he had a wonderful sense of humor through it all, never exhibiting any sign of pain or discomfort. If his legs buckled under him, he'd lay there and grin, like "I meant to do that!" LOL

Finally one morning, my sister and I discovered him in the living room. He had vomited blood and passed bloody stools. He was still alive, but very cold. We gathered him up and took him in to the vet, who said this was the end, he had to be put down.

That was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. But, we have so many good memories of Sam, he will live forever strongly in our hearts!