Tucker, and his love for old cars

Tucker enjoyed every moment that he was allowed to spend with us, and we took advantage of that by taking him everywhere that we could.  I found these older pictures of a day that we took Tuck to a British Car Show and had to share them… The best part is that Nancy doesn’t even know that I found these, and I can assure you that she will be quite surprised, quite happy to see these, and the tears will flow again.

We have a 67 MGB-GT that we used to take Tucker out in, a little small, but he had no problem fitting in back and would lie down and relax for the drive. Tucker was a good sport, as long as he could be with us.  We would take him to the car shows and take him around as we checked out the cars.  He was the greatest at these events, we could have him off leash and he would never bother the cars, when we were getting up close we would tell him to wait and he would either sit or stand where we told him while we got close to the cars to look at them, of course if someone – especially carrying some food – came up to see him, he would break his concentration and become the life of the show, but, he never, ever would get near to the cars in a way that would damage them.

This was taken at a British Car Show, back in 2005, that we used to go to all the time, down near the water, away from the busy streets.  Tucker, as usual, was the star of the show and everyone wanted to come see him.  Most people had no idea what kind of dog he was, and we’ve heard the old “it must be a red Weimaraner”, “that’s a red Doberman that they didn’t crop the ears on” and “The ridge on that Rhodesian Ridgeback doesn’t look right”, so we felt very good about letting them know that Tucker was a Vizsla, which always brought a look of confusion. Then we would tell them he was a Hungarian Pointer, which usually satisfied them enough to quit asking.

At this show our friend Karen had her newly restored Sunbeam Alpine which was getting a lot of admiring glances.  She asked us to see how Tucker liked the car and whether he would like to get in, and once Tucker was satisfied that this was indeed a Sunbeam Alpine and not the Sunbeam Tiger (since no real dog would be caught having pictures taken inside a Tiger), he quite enjoyed getting in and having a few pictures taken.  Everyone loved the mini show inside the car show, most of all Tucker since he got a lot more attention.

Of course, the fact that we quite often brought a picnic with us to these events made Tucker even more excited. Tucker had no problem making us feel bad by staring at our food after he scarfed his own down, knowing that if he did a good enough job we would give in and he would get a sample. This, at the time, made us feel that we weren’t doing him any good by letting him taste our food, but now we wouldn’t have traded that bonding for anything – memories are funny that way.

So, enjoy the pics, enjoy the story, and remember – take the little guys with you when you get a chance, they enjoy being with you, and the memories are priceless.