The story of Sketch.

When I was growing up, we had several dogs. My first dog was a Pomeranian named Cuddles. Cuddles was a great dog. I could walk out from anywhere and yell herecuddlescuddlescuddles, and I don't care where she was, she would come running. Cuddles eventually was ran over by a car on my 8th birthday, ending any desire that I ever had for wanting another dog.
Later on Dad got a German Schnauzer from someone in our ward. This Dog was Ginger, and was actually a pretty good dog. Ginger was a good kids dog, she would always follow the youngest kid, and you could tell where the youngest was , because Ginger would be camped by the front door, and wouldn't move without the kid. It was amazing to see what natural motherly instincts this dog had. The family loved Ginger, and she lived to an amazingly old age. One day, after Ginger finally was too old and sick, and the family was out of town, my brother in-law came by and took Ginger for a drive. She must have got out of the car and ran away, because we never saw Ginger again.
I thought that the Mecham family was finished with dogs, and we had passed that phase, but God works in mysterious ways. One very hot summer day, my sister Mindy was at the Target store by Nellis and Charleston. On her way out of the store she spotted something in the corner of the parking lot, she thought it looked a little out of place and went to investigate what it was, as she got closer, she could see that it was a tiny Schnauzer puppy. Her first instincts were to look around for the dogs owner, certainly the person that had lost this puppy must be looking for it. For those of you that don't know Mindy very well, I should tell you that she has a huge heart, and in near tears she scooped up this poor lost puppy and started walking around the parking lot trying to find it's owner. When she couldn't find them she decided that the dog probably needed water. After getting water and food she continued to search for this poor dogs family. She walked up to people getting in and out of cars, she walked around to stores. She went into Target, the Loan Place, The shoe store.... she skipped the pet store, but did go into the travel agency, Mervyns.... everywhere. She even made a sign and stood on the corner of Nellis (lost dog, please help me find owner). It was no use, after a full day of searching she finally came home with the dog and decided that maybe she would keep him just overnight, and resume her search the next day. She never did find the dogs owner, and that is the story of how we got Sketch. We had Sketch for quite a few years, he would always get out and run away, but unlike the previous owners, somehow we were always able to get him back. He was a good, gentle dog. He loved playing with the kids, just as much as he liked playing with Tommys dogs down at the end of the street. Sketch kind of became Mindy's dog, probably because they bonded that day in the parking lot of Target.
It's funny how attached you can get to pets, and you never know when one will adopt you. Sketch passed away a few years ago, and it tore everyone to pieces when he died, but we will always have the memories of what a good dog he was. So I guess for those of you looking for a story, this is my story of my bighearted, thoughtless sister Mindy.... I mean Melinda.