Tribute to Patti Lou

Patti was a sweetheart, but a good guard dog too. She left us far to soon and unfortunately much of the blame for that lays on me for not feeding and exercising her as well as I should have. Moving from the lake place where she had ample space to safely run around and I could easily take the dogs for safe long walks didn't help.

Patti loved the water and swam like a fish, so much so that she wasn't a particularly good fishing companion. One memorable time I was fishing from the boat by the Grumpy Old Man Hole and she decided she wanted to visit Grumpy Old Man Willard and jumped out of the boat and swam to shore. I was not happy.

Another memorable Patti episode was when she got skunked on the Minnesota Fishing Opener in 2008. There were the many many times I put the dogs to bed. The Patti Scare incident in 2008 was also immortalized here at Bass Pundit. Another Patti scare was when she had a big fatty tumor grow on her neck; Fortunately it was not cancer and it never came back after surgery.

Patti's companionship certainly helped ease me through the unexpected loss of Soren in December of 2004. Patti was good with children and at times was jealous of the attention given to other dogs that stayed with us, but not Pete's dog Sandy. She never had any issues with our cat Smokey and those two got along quite well.

Patti was a horse of a dog that didn't know her own size. She would sometimes try and sit on my chest or shoulders as I was laying in bed. If she stepped on your foot you knew it. If she was hungry, I knew it.

Patti, you will be missed!!!