familiar to the public, "that people would come up to him in the street and greet him, because they thought they knew him from their hometowns." In the first-season episode #32 "Dog Days At Shady Rest", Higgins, the actor dog, was featured as "Sheba", the dog of Betty Jo's boyfriend Orville Miggs (played by actor Jimmy Hawkins). That episode gave the producers an idea. It was decided at the start of the 1964–1965 season to add a new character to The Shady Rest - a dog. As a result, Higgins became a regular cast member. His first appearance was in the second season opener "Betty Jo's Dog". In that installment, coming home on the first day of school, Betty Jo meets a little male dog who immediately attaches himself to her and the Bradley family. Kate, at first, is against keeping him but by the end of the episode, she is won over by him and allows him to stay. Also, in that episode, the subject of Higgins's name is addressed. At first, different names are suggested by the sisters when he first arrives ("Spike", "Prince", and "Byron"), but they never decide, so the dog at that time is not actually named. Eventually, the character's name becomes simply "Dog" or "Boy". Press releases for the show referred to him as the "Shady Rest Dog". (The fifth-season episode "Higgins, Come Home" (broadcast January 27, 1968) refers to the dog's real name, but the title itself is not displayed on the episode.) Higgins remained with the show until its cancellation in 1970. During that time, he won a PATSY Award, and he also was cover-featured on an issue of TV Guide. Higgins had a close rapport with Edgar Buchanan. In the official cast pictures taken each year during the run of Petticoat Junction, Buchanan is shown holding or petting the dog. Higgins went on to star in the successful 1974 film Benji which also featured Buchanan in a cameo role. Linda Kaye Henning indicated in a TV interview her father, the show's producer, had planned to run a contest to name the dog but that never materialized and thus the dog was left without a "proper" name. Another new character was introduced for the 1964–65 season to serve as a female nemesis for Kate Bradley - Selma Plout. Virginia Sale briefly reprised her role in the first season of Green Acres (her