Faith is an incredible dog. She was born just before Christmas in 2002, and we were lucky enough to have her in our family just 3 short weeks later. She was born to a mother dog, believed to be nearly full blooded Chinese Chow Chow, along with several other siblings. Faith wasn’t the only puppy born with deformities, but because “Princess”, her mother, was not our dog, we are not sure of the exact number of puppies she gave birth to. It is certain, however, that Faith was the only puppy with deformities to live.

Faith was rescued by Jude Stringfellow’s son Reuben on January 21, 2003, when he and his friend Johnny, the owner of Princess, jumped over the fence of the flea market area that Princess was raised to guard. Princess isn’t exactly the mothering kind. She was literally terminating Faith’s life because she knew instinctively that Faith was unable to battle the other puppies for a place to feed. Faith was weak, small, runtish, and mostly she was nearly dead. Reuben grabbed Faith out from under Princess and smuggled her under his jersey. He wore #63 for the Putnam City Pirates football team.

When Reuben brought Faith to Jude she had 3 actual legs, but the left front leg was badly deformed, placed backward, upside down, and it had more toes on it than normal dog legs. The leg was removed when she was 7 months old when it began to atrophy. People ask Judy if it was easy to teach Faith to walk upright…the answer she gave is, “NO! It was not easy, and it was not natural. It was SUPER natural, and therefore, we have to give all of the credit to Jesus. Of course, it took a little….Faith as well.”

In the beginning, she put Faith on a surfboard to let him feel the movement.
Later she used peanut butter on a spoon as a lure and reward for him for standing up and jumping around. Even the other dog at home encouraged him to walk..

Amazingly, only after 6 months, like a miracle, Faith learned to balance on his hind legs and to jump to move forward. After further training in the snow, he could now walk like a human being.

Faith loves to walk around now. No matter where he goes, he attracts people to him.

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He is fast becoming famous on the international scene and has appeared on various newspapers and TV shows. He was even considered to appear in one of Harry Potter movies.

There is now a book entitled “Faith Walks: A Memoir of a Beautiful Life” published about him.

Jude Stringfellow has given up her teaching post and is going around the world to preach that ‘even without a perfect body, one can have a perfect soul.’

In life there are always undesirable things, so in order to feel better you just need to look at life from another direction.

Faith’s message is one of hope, that it will bring fresh new ways of thinking to everyone and that everyone will appreciate and be thankful for each beautiful day.

Faith is the continual demonstration of the strength and wonder of life.

Faith has her own website: faiththedog.info/ and you can find much more about her there and order the book “Faith Walks”. Her message that you don’t have to LOOK perfect to be perfect is threaded throughout the book. There is both a print and Ebook edition.