When I was growing up we had a german shepard mix named King. We had him for 17 years. He was always very protective of our entire family, but especially my youngest sister who was actually a few years younger than him. One day when I was 15 I came home on my bike to see King wandering in the middle of the street. I tried to ride up to him to see why he was out and about. King just turned and barked at me and ran off. Confused I rode up to my house where my distraught mother told me my 2 year old sister was missing. I jumped on my bike and rode down the street, forgetting about King, to look for my sister.

To my surprise, King had stopped a few yard down the street waiting for me. He yelped a few times and ran off. I followed him, wondering what was going on. He led me down the block, around the corner and down the next block. He led me direclty to a neighbor I did not recognize. That neighbor was holding my sister in his arm. King had led me directly to my sister! Often King slept under my sister’s crib just to keep watch. We lost him in 1992, by then three of the four of us had left the nest, and my youngest sister was in her last year of high school. One day when I came home to visit, my mother told me that King had simply wandered off into the woods and never returned. I guess his job was done.

Corey from VA