The story behind the Sandpoint Bulldogs

Editor’s: This story was told to the writer by Jack Parker.

Pat was an English bulldog that lived from about 1930-1939. He was all white with black spots and around 35-40 pounds.

When this picture was taken in 1935, I was about 2 years old. I was born in Sandpoint in 1933. My sister was 3.5 years older than I; Pat joined our family sometime between the time I was born and then.

Pat was my dad's dog and he followed him all over. He was a tough looking dog but very friendly. My dad owned the Chevy Dealership that was on the corner of Third and Cedar downtown. Pat would spend most of his time there and he would also often wander around town.

In those days, there were no stops on car doors, they would just flop open. Well, a car door would be open and he would just jump in, hop on the seat and take a nap. There was kind of a bow hair fabric on the seats. He would get out of the car and he would shed like crazy, so there would be white hair all over the seats. Due to the fact that he wandered around town, he became pretty well known.

At the time, the high school team was called the Red & White Warriors. Well, when Pat would wander around town, the kids started taking him to the football games and that's how the Sandpoint Bulldogs came about.

He started spending more and more time downtown. He would hang around the Pend Oreille hotel, it was a three story hotel at the time and he would get through the door of the hotel and would sleep on the couch. No one would bother him there.

There was also a cafe next door, so he would go out the backdoor and get whatever scraps they had. So, after some time, he kind of left us here at home. But he would come around every now and again. I think probably the main reason he moved into the hotel is because I was getting too much attention once I was born. I remember that my dad loved him very, very dearly.

Pat was an adventurous dog and in those days, the cars had wide running boards. So, Pat learned to ride those running boards pretty well. A lot of the cars had a spare tire and rack right in front of the passenger's door. So, Pat would get on those running boards where the spare tire was and it couldn't throw him off. He would just get up and go wherever, whenever.

More often than not, people would not know when Pat was hitching a ride on their running board. On more than one occasion, my dad would get a call, "Hey! Pat's here, what do I do with him?" He might be in Clark Fork, Priest River, Troy, Libby, Dover or Kootenai.

They finally put a collar around his neck that read, "My name is Pat, if found call 93." My dad would tell me they would go all over the county to get the dog and bring him home. He was such a character around town.

I remember the day that Pat passed away. I was only about 6 years old, but I remember talking with my dad and his head was down. He looked at me and said, "I had to put Pat down." That must have been around 1939. He was just a character dog, who brought most everyone joy around town who got to know him.

There are some Sandpoint community members who might still even remember Pat! Go Bulldogs!