Dogs I’ve lived with

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When I was born, my sister had a dog. My father hadn’t wanted her to get a
dog, but wasn’t given much of a choice. While he would leave dishes of
water for the animals in the wood behind out house in hot weather, he
“didn’t like animals” and didn’t want them in the house.* When the
carnival was in town, my sister went to it every day and played the “win a
puppy” game. On the last day, the guy running the game gave one to my
sister, even though she hadn’t scored enough points. While my father
argued with the man about it not being fair to give the puppy to my sister,
she brought it home.
It was a German Sheppard. Although a puppy when she got it, it grew
rapidly. I’m told we got our own post office box because no one wanted to
bring mail to the house. My mother said she watched the meter reader’s
hair go white over a few months of visiting.
The dog once caught a car. It was a Volkswagen beetle. It jumped on the
roof and wouldn’t get off. The driver knew who it belonged to and drove to
my parents house and honked the horn. My father came out and got the dog.
My sister and I maintain this counts not only as a catch but as a retrieve
as well.
Almost all pictures of me as a baby have the dog in them. Sometimes there
are people in them too. So, I maintain it was the dog raising me.
When my sister went off to college, my father had the dog put to sleep.
I was very young when that happened, but wanted a new dog. For years I
would ask for one and be told no.
Then, just before I started 4th grade we were down at my aunt’s cottage
near the beach. A local farm was giving out free dog. I asked, my mother
said yes.
This was in the middle of my being my brother’s imaginary friend, and she
wanted that to stop. So, I got the dog with the understanding that I
couldn’t be my brother’s imaginary friend anymore. He and I both wanted a
dog, so we agreed.
What a stupid dog that was. Don’t get me wrong, he was my dog and I loved
him. But, the only trick I ever managed to teach him was to eat. He was
born a farm dog and never took to being a house dog. He got into
everything, chased everything, and got into all sorts of trouble.
We had him a couple of years before he disappeared. One day he followed my
father to the supermarket. My father went in, when he came out the dog was
gone. Never seen again. I looked and looked, never found any sign of him.
I still wonder about that. My father was not a liar. But, it was my
mother who told me his version of the tale. She also drove me around while
I looked for the dog.
Don’t know. Never will.
Four or five years later, we got Ben. He was my brother’s dog. I fed him.
I walked him. I cleaned up after him. I’m pretty sure he didn’t think he
was my brother’s dog.
Ben was the dog that even my father liked. Fairly small, mostly well
behaved, fairly smart. He was around for 18 years.
Even though I was not on speaking terms with my parents when they decided
to put him to sleep, I went home to see him the day before. (I made sure
it was a day my mother wasn’t home.)
My father got mad at me about that. I wouldn’t talk to my parents, but I’d
come see the dog.
“The dog has lived with you 18 years,” I told him. “I moved out when I was
17. He’s lived here longer than I did.”
My wife used to joke that the dog was part of what kept my father going.
Neither wanted to feel guilty about leaving the other alone with my mother
and brother. But, my dad kept going 4 more years.
I’m told that my mother and brother have a new dog now. I’ve never met her.

*My father had a history of “dog problems”. According to my father, when
young his sister had a dog. If it made a mess in the house, she would say
it was my father’s dog. He’d clean up the mess, then proclaim he was going
to sell the dog. My aunt would then have to buy the dog back from him.
This continued to repeat until the dog was trained better. A process my
father did not encourage. My aunt used to tell the story with more or less
the same plot points, if a different perspective. Certainly without
recognition of the entrepreneurial pride my father showed.