I first read this book in 2nd grade when we had to pick something for a book report and I grabbed this without knowing a thing about it. Hey, it's got a big cute dog on the cover!
My parents are from Massachusetts and such big Yankees that when I saw this as a child I thought that they called the dog "Old Yeller" because it wouldn't shut up, or something. It never occurred to me that they might have called it "Old Barker" if that had been the case.