MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — MountainFest attendees can meet a living legend this weekend.
No, not Hank Jr. or George Thorogood. Rather, the West Virginia legend Lily the English Bulldog — who has logged over 20,000 miles with a Lewis County biker and dog breeder — is likely the first thing and the last thing people at MountainFest will see.
“When it gets near closing time and we need to slow the crowd down a little bit from rushing out, everybody wants to stop by and pet her,” Walkersville native Steve Prince said. “She quit sniffing hands about 500,000 hands ago, but she’s very subtle.”
Lily is a 70-pound English Bulldog who lives with 16 other bulldogs with Prince and his wife. She rides with Prince all across the state for fundraising photo ops for non-profits. She also is a certified therapy dog who Prince takes around to nursing homes, hospitals, and schools.
“We work with children that have attention deficit disorder,” he said. “We go to pre-schools. I do a lot of nursing homes. The ones that are way back, not the ones that are around towns because they don’t get to see things like this.”
“Things like this” meaning a bulldog with the balance to log over 20,000 miles as Prince’s “biker babe” — all of which were logged without being strapped to the seat.
“She just sits behind me or stands,” he said. “She’s been well over 100 [trips] and four emergency slide and stops. And she’ll go through the curves without cowering or nothing whatsoever.”
Lily is the second dog that Prince has turned into a minor celebrity. He’s been doing this for nine years, but the first five years involved an English Bulldog named Pebbles. When she got sick, Lily beat out four other contenders to take the position.
“She did it,” Prince said. “Next day, she done 250 miles, and now she’s got over 20,000 miles. And she had no training.”
But Prince said it wasn’t just about people seeing “something kind of cool.” Rather, Lily has a calm, easy-going personality that makes her the most popular dog when he brings her to see the sick, the elderly, and special needs children.
“She is very calm, subtle,” he said. “She’s not a kid face licker. You can put her in with a bunch of babies and she won’t be licking them in the face.”
That’s a talent Prince and Lily put to use last June, when Lily helped raise $1,500 following historic flooding in Elkview.
“We set up down at the 7/11 at Elkview and I took donations for people who wanted to get their picture with her,” Prince said. “That was just something that I wanted to do. So we raised $1,500, and I gave three people $500 a piece that lost everything. I personally knew them.”
When he originally pulled up to the flood-ravaged town, he said he wasn’t surprised that he didn’t receive the warmest welcome. Originally, a gentleman cooking food for displaced flood victims told Prince to keep moving — thinking he was simply lost.
“He came out there and he said, ‘If you want directions or something, get out of here,'” Prince recalled. “He was very rude. And I said, ‘No, sir. We’re here to help you for a couple hours.’ And he said, ‘I’d love to have it.'”
So if you find yourself at MountainFest Thursday, Friday, or Saturday, Prince said you should feel free to say hello to Lily when you see her.