I don't post here much. Just a professional lurker.
We had a little 15lb mutt for 17years while I was growing up. He moved everywhere with us, Utah, Mississippi, England, Kansas, then back to Mississippi. After he passed(my dad cried) he said no more dogs for us. So bout 8 years ago a friend of his was having to give up their little black lab. Dad decided it was time for a dog again and he got Alex.
The next year a skinny skittish rottweiler with no collar started hanging around my parents house. After a week or so my dad felt sorry and decided to start feeding her. She would not approach the bowl until he went inside and any sudden moves or noises and she was gone into the woods. This went on for a few weeks and she would actually eat with him standing there and he was able to pet her so he figured it was his dog now my niece named her Precious and moved her into the fenced back yard with Alex. It was a good year plus before anyone other than my Dad could pet her. Well during all this she had gotten pregnant and when she finally had the puppies it was the middle of a cold November night and when Dad found them in the morning only one puppy was still alive. My Mom started bottle feeding her and named her Miracle.
This is how my parents who swore off dogs in 1994 ended up with 3 BIG dogs in about 6 months in 2006.
My Mom died of cancer in 2009 and within a few weeks the mother dog Precious started getting into vicious fights with the daughter dog Miracle. Precious just passed last year with some sort of cancer. So now my 8yo Miracle is the last link to that skinny rescue from all those years go and to my Mom.
tl;dr dad kept a stray and I now have her only child.