This is Sophie, who came with me from Los Angeles along with Smokey. Sophie’s the jefe of the dogs, but she’s been hurting lately, and can’t put any weight on her right leg, so she’s been getting around on three legs, but she insists on making all the walks to the river, even if it’s tough. She never complains. She waits until we get a ways ahead and out of the way so she can lope on three legs and get some momentum going. Sophie is like a mother to the others, especially Oso, who always runs up to her. Sophie loves cleaning the other dogs, Oso, Lucy and Smokey mostly. And while the other dogs fight now and then (except Lucy), no one gets into a fight with Sophie. In fact, Sophie does her best to break up fights, but is hampered by her bum leg. Sophie also loves people and will come up to anybody. She’s probably about 10 or 11 years old.
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And this is Smokey, the oldest at 12 or 13. Smokey’s part chow, part small shepherd, and pretty much a one man dog, but he does warm up if the person is cool with him. Smokey’s had health problems too recently, not being able to pee, and we’ve made 6 trips now to the vet, Dr. Duran, for a number of operations and treatments. Smokey doesn’t like to fight much anymore, but unfortunately when one starts Old Time and Oso gang up on the old guy and I have to rescue him before he gets injured too bad. He’s still a savage fighter though, as young Oso learned to his dismay a couple of times when it was one on one, a story I’ll tell when we come to Oso. Sophie and Smokey are old buddies of course – they never fight each other, or Lucy.
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