Faith was curled up on the carpet beside her agent, Mike Maguire, who kept reaching down to hand her pieces of his chicken sandwich, when their waitress gave him an easy one.
“What kind of dog is that?” asked Alicia Weedon, 16.
With a flair honed in scores of such encounters, Maguire, a sports agent from Fairfax County, Va., said simply, “A two-legged dog.”
The chow mix jumped up, her haunches tight and six-pack abs working, and began to walk.
She has been on Oprah and Montel. She has been on Japanese and Korean TV, and is scheduled to fly to Istanbul next month.
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At the Bob Evans in Manassas, Va., this month, the Faith phenomenon played out in a more intimate arena.
“That is so awesome!” said Marika Robinson, a teenage server.
“My mom died last year,” she said. “That would have put a smile on her face.” Robinson tried to hide behind a counter and began to cry.
Faith has that kind of effect on people.
The 5-year-old was born with a shriveled left leg that flopped behind her and had to be removed and a legless, partial right paw.
Owner Jude Stringfellow, 46, said she gave up her job as a teacher in Oklahoma to take Faith on the road. Her son found Faith as a puppy, and the dog has grown into a calling and a job, she said.
Stringfellow said she had considered starting a charity, but the idea has stalled. Her Web site has for years requested donations, and the description of where the money goes has changed regularly. She said that she does not keep records but that the money has been minimal and that she has passed it on to other charities.
Her focus, Stringfellow said, is spreading Faith’s message. “I want people to understand that you can be imperfect physically and still be perfect through your soul, through your spirit,” she said.