I don’t know all the details of Red’s story, I know his mother’s name was Rose, an odd coincidence and I know he was bred in Northern Ireland, and I know he had some trouble there and was taken to the United States and fell into the loving hands of Dr. Karen Thompson, and I know he sired 70 little Red’s and then Karen began looking for a home for him. I love the idea of all those Red’s out there, Red is a living argument for good breeding, whatever happen to him and I always think of that when people tell me the only way to get a dog is from a shelter, and then, of course, there would be no Red’s or Lenore, either.

Karen Thompson read on one of my  books “Izzy & Lenore”, about my hospice therapy work with my border collie Izzy, and she got a message that God wanted me to have Red, and she set about making that happen, I am not quite sure how she did it, but Karen is a woman of faith and if she believes something ought to happen, I would not want to be standing in the doorway.

She also had this idea that he might be a therapy dog as well as a herding dog as he is soft and sweet and intuitive about people. That seems to be happening as well, you get the picture. I wish Karen would decide that my next book will sell a million copies, Red will retire with a county full of sheep.

It is fascinating to me to consider how dogs come to us, I believe we get the dogs we need, they are spirit animals and they find us when we need them, and vice versa, perhaps. When the right dog finds the right human, magic happens and lives are altered.

Red is entering the next chapter of his remarkable life, we will begin working with veterans in the Fall, I am clear about that now.  Yesterday, in a nursing home in Vermont, I saw Red trying to figure out the work, he kept looking at me and I kept nodding and reinforcing him when he connected with someone. Like Izzy, he is one of those dogs for whom this work is natural. I can hardly wait to see how the rest of Red’s story turns out.