After looking at 21 pages of great pet shots and subsequent comments in this challenge, although we have thousands of photos of our own cats and dogs and a large collection of unusual animals we have worked with (not "our" pets) I thought I'd post something from the files. These photos were scanned from 35mm slides and show my son and our pet African spurred tortoise, Tommy, dressed as R2-D2 from Star Wars competing in the local pet parade about 1978-80. They won a prize for their clever and unique idea. Tommy was a great pet and we had him for 20+ years after he was rescued. Cheers, chase

A couple of tales (tail?) to tell....about my hero dogs.

The pic below is Ellie, my yellow lab that I had the privilege of having for a few years. Ellie was without doubt the smartest dog I've ever handled. She loved everybody, and all the neighbors joyed in having her around to play with their kids. She was twice included in children's birthday parties (I wasn't).

Hanging on her collar is a walkie-talkie unit. Just a whim one day, but I was able to control her with that by voice or clicks.

There's a big pond on the place where a couple of my pups would swim when we were out. Ellie, being a lab, adored the water. Trixie, (pic on my post on Pg 1), waded but wouldn't swim. One day she got brave and pushed on out, and then didn't want to quit. She got tired I was fairly sure that she was getting into trouble.

Ellie was in the process of bringing me a stick from the pond at the time. She saw me stand and start to take shoes/pants off to go get Trixie. Before I was quite ready to swim out, Ellie went had dropped her stick, swam out to Trixie and pushed her all the way to the shore. Trixie flopped down and rested for a loooong time.

Ellie is hero #1.