Man’s Best Friend

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Brett Walker
January 30, 2010
Filed under Features

Dallas Reid endures the repetitive whistle of the Andy Griffith theme song, petting Leon and Roxie, his young Boxer pups. The aging parakeet , Annie, has forgotten all but the first bar of the tune, which it learned at its previous home.

With five dogs, a betta fish (whose name changes at least twice a week) and Annie, the Reids’ place is home to seven animals - each rescued or taken-in from an unfit home.

“They mean a lot to us, and it’s going to be a really sad day when the old one dies,” Reid said.

Trapper, Dallas’s 16-year-old pit bull , was found on the side of the road, famished and severely beaten.

“After a couple of weeks he warmed up to us and he let us pet him,” he said. “It took him 12 years before he actually realized we weren’t going to hurt him.”

During those 12 years, Trapper would react to loud noises by trying “to become the carpet.”

“Now he’s a stereotypical old-man dog. He just lays down a lot, but he’s also really sweet, which is not something you’d expect from a pit bull,” Reid said. “He runs around, he still plays, he’s still got a couple good years left in him.”

Rescuers found Dallas’s first dog, Timmy the Greyhound, in an abandoned house with 19 other dogs trapped in crates. Nine survived, including Timmy.

“I lost my first dog in seventh grade. That really changed me. It’s rough. It definitely made me take my life a whole lot less seriously,” Reid said. “I mean, this dog only lived for like ten years, and you gotta live well.”

Leon and Roxie, Dallas’ youngest dogs, came from a renter of the Reids’ house who could not take care of her dog’s new litter.

“We were originally only going to take one of them, but we realized we couldn’t separate them,” Reid said.

The Reid family received a purebred Golden Retriever , Tanner, after his previous family decided they didn’t want him anymore.

“My favorite thing about having pets is just the fact that you’re never really alone,” Reid said. “Sometimes it’s just good to have something there.”