As close as we can come to Ferdie's early story is that one cold, snowy, icy night in the middle of January, a young man drove into a neighborhood with Ferdie, let him out of the car or truck and drove off. He left this dog to stand at that spot on the street despite the local neighbors attempts to keep him in their garage. (Tracy! We will never forget what you did for him) He went from Tracy's house to the Collinsville Animal Shelter to Dirk's Fund Golden Retriever Rescue to us. Along the way he was neutered and treated for pneumonia. The mystery of his street side vigil was solved in the comments to my first blog post on him. Thankfully the story gets better as most of you who've met Ferdie know full well.
His first full day on campus, Saturday January 31, meeting many of the local dogs.
One year later, a more involved explanation of our journey to adopting Ferdie and more from Tracy in the comments.
Today he's just one heck of a fine dog, loves to help work on the seminary grounds, meet groups touring the campus, toddlers and babies are his favorite people in the world, walk in the morning with a couple of his doggie friends and play in the afternoon with the Booj. But he especially loves his bear.

And he loves basketball games

This is one of my favorite pictures of Ferdie and babies. He is so good with them. Click the photo to see the joy in the little boy and girl's faces.

We have so many pictures of him with small children, it's amazing.

Here is his best play friend Booj.


What a great guy he is, we're the lucky ones.