A lot of the readers of Delwires will have read stories about Nellie my first ever dog, Nellie was a WHFT and a real character as the stories depict. This is a story about Queenie a smooth fox terrier who I loved dearly, she was a great companion and a loyal friend, her full name was Royal Regal Rotherwood Queen and she was just that very elegant and regal she trotted everywhere, with her head and tail both held high.

Queenie was game for anything and would play ball with us lads and would tolerate being dressed up by the girls next door and paraded around in a pram with a dolls bonnet on her head for hours.
She was also a keen hunter with all the primeval instincts of a wolf just under the surface, she would catch rabbits, rats and mice as was her nature as a terrier but one day after she had been out rabbiting over the local fields she came home and went straight to her box in the shed and vanished again for about 10minutes and returned and vanished again, this was repeated five times and my mum said Stephen go and see what Queenie’s upto, so I went to the shed where her bed was not that she ever used it that much only in the day as she was always smuggled upstairs when it was are bedtime, on approaching the bed I noticed movement and looked into she 4 live baby rabbits and as I stood in amazement Queenie arrived back with another alive in her mouth.

She had obviously either killed the mother and then found the young rabbits or had found them abandoned and brought them home to try and care for them, which apart from cuddling them like puppies she couldn’t, so we where left to hand rear these wild rabbits and Queenie looked on them as her puppies and guarded them from any cat’s or dogs as they grew to be adults we tried to release them back into the wild but they never left the garden or the green outside our house 49 Meadow Road and continued to enjoy Queenies protection for many years 

 As you will have realised Queenie had all the hunting instincts of a real Fox terrier, I remember working with my father during a school holiday doing some construction work at a dye factory near Leek in Staffordshire. The factory was in a fairly rural setting with open fields all around, the dye works had huge settling tanks for separating the waste water from the dye colours suspended in it. their where lots and lots of these settling tanks and when viewed from the top of one of the hills that surrounding the factory it resembled an artists pallet, with vivid Reds, Greens, Blues, Oranges and many many more colours. Anyway as was my Dads custom when I went with him to work Queenie was also taken to keep me out of mischief when I got bored of helping my Dad. Queenie was always looking for a bit of sport and at this site everyone joined in, let me explain the site had a very bad Rat problem which Queenie was more than happy to help and resolve and as always wanted to show one and all her good work’s so began the what colour this morning sweep stakes which not only included the construction site workers but soon the entire factory work force was involved including senior management, who all placed bets on what colour Rat Queenie would arrive with in the site hut the next day! good old Queenie she didn’t care what colour they where but the entire workforce did!