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Welcome to Sam & Chuck's Home Page

For those of you who are wondering who Sam & Chuck are, they are our pets.  Sam is a very active 4 month old German Shepherd(born March 16, 99) and Chuck is a 2 year old Hymalayan Cat.  We couldn't leave them out of the The Wensel Family Pages!

We will start with Sam.  There is a bit of a story behind the German Shepherds in the Wensel family.  Sam is actually our third Shepperd and is a bit spoiled.  Our first one was Max.  We got him when Jacob was one year old and purely out of coincidence, Max was born on my birthday!  So as you can imagine, I was convinced he was the dog for me.  Well, thanks to the Marine Corps we had to get rid of Max.  I was getting ready to deploy overseas and the family was going to live with Gramma while I was gone for six months and we really didn't have a place to keep the dog.   He could have been chained in the back yard but that wouldn't have been fair to him.  Barbara, a relative who is amazingly caring when animals are concerned said that she would be happy to take him into her home while I was gone.  This provided a place for him to run and play with a good sized yard for excercise, much better than being chained in the yard.  I decided that if Barbara was willing, she could keep Max for ever.  It would have been to confusing for him, being only a year old when I left, to understand why he was being ripped from family to family.  Shepherds are very protective of family members and the first few years are key to establishing that family relationship.

Here are some shots of Max with Jacob in 1996/1997

Now, lets talk about Sam and how he came into the family.  Now that I am done deploying overseas, I felt it was time for another family dog.  I work nights and felt he would provide a sense of security for my wife and kids while I was away in the evenings.  When we found a breeder, we chose our puppy. A healthy male, so we thought.  When we brought him home, he was very sick and within a week died from a rare intenstinal disease.  The breeder, after several apologies, gave us another pup, which we reluctantly took.  He turned out to be very healthy and a great dog.   That is the story behind Sam and how we arrived at the name on his AKC Registration papers, Second Chance Sambo.

Sam's Heritage

   As for Chuck, actually Jacob named him Charlie, he has been around for a few years now.  We got him when I got back from float and after we had gotten rid of Max.  Jacob needed a pet, Hope had been on me for years about getting a kitten, so finally I broke down and got one. Here are a few early shots of Charlie and one recent one.

Charlie (AKA Chuck!)