Chief The Shop Dog

Occurred on October 4, 2022 / Maypearl, Texas, USA

: "Chief is a 'rescue' brought home by one of my old Marines I served with in Afghanistan. He was an older dog, who was abandoned in the hood of south Dallas, most likely the unwanted product of dog fighting rings (he is the exact opposite of a fighting dog) found chained to a tree, and nearly starved to death missing all his hair when he was turned into the ASPCA. He was overlooked for adoption several times due to his age and set to be euthanized the next day in December 2015 when Nate decided to give him a chance and bring him home. The ASPCA said Chief was 'about 2yrs old' however, our next-door neighbor is a veterinarian, and said he was every bit 'over 5 years old'.
Chief was then put through service dog training, and rode every day in a field service diesel mechanic truck loving life and greeting customers on job sites all over Texas for about 2 years. In 2017 Nate switched companies, and they would not allow Chief in the mechanic truck regardless of his service dog training. For some reason I and Nate are the ONLY two people he would listen to and take commands from, so the came to my shop in 2017 and became our 'shop dog' and continued to ride every day in the side by side doing daily tasks on our ranch (beekeepers and cattle and operate two motorcycle ATV/UTV mechanic shops). I am completely deaf in my left ear from IEDs - I was an EOD team leader (My wife and I both did 21 years in the Marine Corps), Chief figured out I was severely hearing impaired on his own and will come to nudge me in the leg when a customer shows up to the shop, then goes out to greet them himself.
He's been quite the shop dog, his favorite food is tacos and insists on riding in the Polaris Ranger everywhere I go. Whenever we go somewhere I just say 'Let's go to work' and he bolts to whatever we are riding in, or most of the time he just hears the key switch and comes running."