@roger,
Thanks.
As an aside, the grandfather of the guy who owned the dog was a former Lieutenant Governor of N. Dakota, where he grew up.
When expressing interest he said "Really, it's not a big deal. There's like 4 people there, so....."
Looking at the demographics, it seems like the pop. of ND has held stead at around 750K since like the 1920's.
Prolly a lot of dogs.