Chessie is Born!

September 5, 1985

San Francisco, CA

I remember the first time I saw Chessie as an eight week old terrorizing puppy. It was somewhere around the year 1986. I was still working at Pro Train in Oakland. I had already met Patricia Cook, and I still had Prezo, though he was around 14 years old. I no had longer at Louie because I had to find him another home because he was dog and cat aggressive and to unpredictable.

Pat had referred me to a woman with a female Staffordshire Bull Terrier in San Francisco who Pat had heard about from a Staffordshire Bull Terrier breeder/friend of hers in Oakland. This breeder in Oakland had supplied the male to breed with this woman's female. The female only had one puppy, and it was Chessie.

I went to the apartment and there was this butterball of a puppy running around reeking havoc. Since she was the only puppy in the litter, she had all the food and was sassy about it too. I said that is the puppy I want.

I named her Chessie because she had a huge Cheshire Cat smile all the time, even when she wasn't panting. Her registered name was Woodacre's Cheshire Smile. Chessie was the first to have the kennel name "Woodacre" attached to her registered name. Woodacre Avenue is the street that my parents lived on in San Francisco, and I thought it sounded really nice.