I’ve never been all that much of a dog person. Cats are my preference. But growing up on a farm, we always had a dog. For most of my years on the farm, that dog was Butch. And given how many pictures we have of Butch and me, it appears he hardly left my side!

A German Shepherd mix, Butch was a fierce protector of our farm and us kids, he was as good a cow dog as you could hope for, he was a member of our family.

Butch greeted every visitor to our farm a bark that kept them in their cars until Dad called him off. His bark may have been worse than his bite, but no stranger ever opted to check that out.

Though Butch was allowed in the house, he could only come as far as the kitchen. Not in the living room. Not in the bedrooms. When Dad went off to bed, Butch positioned himself at the kitchen door and waited there until Dad got up in the morning to go milk cows.

Like many dogs, Butch wasn’t too fond of storms. When the thunder boomed and lightening lit the sky, Butch snuck into my folks’ bedroom and lay down on the floor next to Dad’s side of the bed. Dad never sent him away.

Butch was pretty much everywhere on the farm. He checked out the laundry when Mom was washing clothes in the basement. He went with us kids to get the cows up from the pasture. He raced along side our sleds when we shot down the hills in the winter. He wore a path from the house to the fence line where he ran each time one of us drove down the lane.

Butch was a good and faithful dog. Writing this blog reminds me of what a good friend Butch was and it lets me help other dogs who could be as good for a family as Butch was for ours.

From now until September 3, for every blog that mentions the Pedigree Foundation, the Foundation will donate 20 pounds of dog food to help feed the more than four million dogs that wind up in shelters and breed rescue organizations each year. The ‘Write a Post Help a Dog” goal is to donate 10,000 lbs. of dog food from this blog effort.

If you have or had an important dog in your life, think about joining this campaign. Check out the rules here.