As far as we know, Lady was afraid of only two things—darkness and thunder. Well, we probably should not say she was afraid of darkness. She just would not sleep in the dark. Nancys’ Dad told us several times in the four years he had her that she stayed up all night and slept during the day. When we brought her to our house there was a light outside our door. She would lie down under that light at night and sleep. When we brought her into the house, we discovered that we would have to leave a light on for her to sleep. With the light on she would lie down and sleep all night. Without the light –no sleep. Thunder was the other thing that frightened Lady. When a thunderstorm came, she would get so nervous that she would just pace back and forth. If it was a severe storm, she would actually tremble. Nancy was the only one that could calm her a little. She could get Lady to lie down for short periods of time by her chair and pet her, or if the storm came at night Nancy would get up and walk with Lady.
Nancy was Ladys’ playmate and Durell was assigned to pet her. Nancy and Lady would play or wrestle with one another several times a day when she was a young dog. Lady would pretend to bite Nancy, but she would only get a hand or arm in her mouth. She never bit down. She only wanted Nancy to think she was going to bite. After playing for a while she would come over to Durell to be petted while she rested. Lady also loved to play with her green ball. She would get it in her mouth and throw it up in the air then run and catch it before it hit the floor. After she caught it, she would turn to us to see if we were laughing. If we were, she would do it again. Over and over until she was given out. Lady liked to chase the squirrels in the backyard. The fenced in backyard was hers. If a squirrel was in it eating acorns, Lady would bark one time and take off like a blue streak after the squirrel. If the squirrel did not have a good jump on her, she would be by its side when the squirrel got to the fence. The squirrels knew that once they got through the fence they were safe. Lady was no longer interested in them. Lady never bothered any birds in the fence except Black Birds. She did not like Black Birds at all, and if one was inside the fence she treated them the same as she did the squirrels—maybe worse. If one flew over low enough for her to see it, she would jump up and bark at it. If one was in a tree near enough for her to see or hear, she barked at them. Any time Lady could run a Black Bird off, she did.