THE DOG-
I had this Jack Russell with Fox Terrier mix dog growing up whose’ name was Shackelford. Now most kids I know would name their dog some dignitary canine name like “Fido,” or “Scratchy,” but I had this absolute fascination with a stunt pilot that happened to volunteer as an usher at my dad’s church when I was a really young boy.
The man just so happened to be very nice to me while serving at his post every Sunday. He served greeting people at the doors for the entrance down the isle to where our family used to sit. His name was John Shackelford. This guy was the nicest man in the world, and while other kids said they wanted to be police men, fire fighters, or an army soldier, I just flat out knew at 4 years old that the only thing for “God’s will” in my life was to be a STUNT PILOT! Seriously, if you were me, would you have imagined doing anything else? Hence the name for the dog could be nothing else than the coolest name in the world “Shackelford.”Shackelford’s short little foot and a half height body was nothing but pure brilliance underneath his white spotted brown fur coat. By the way that’s the dog NOT the stunt pilot doubling church usher, He actually was sheer genius. He let us kids do things to him that now looking back were down right cruel, yet minutes later after yelping off because we hurt him would come back wagging his tail and be our friend as if nothing ever happened. We’d do things like pretending to create a human...errr...live dog swing by attempting to hoist upside down all 4 of his paws in opposite directions between two trees until he got about two inches off the ground, and then he’d yelp frantically struggle out of the restraints and then run off. The physics and the pain that poor pooch endured while living with kids on a farm I couldn’t begin to tell you.
We truly loved this dog so much though and taught this dog how to ride the bike, and skateboard. He was the best circus animal ever known to man that never made it to the “big leagues” in the circus! On top of all of that, instead of doing some “normal trick” (rolling over, doing a spin, jump, or whatever) for treats or food we taught him how to sneeze for his food. Yes, you read that right SNEEZE. The dog was truly a genius and ahead of his time in so many ways.
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