Dog Gone

      I never thought there would be a time in my life when I didn't have a dog as part of the family, but that time has been here for about eight years now, ironically enough the life span of some dogs.  After Cosmo, our last dog died, too young at the age of eight, we thought we were too old to own another dog.  It's sad enough to think about what would happen to our cat if she should outlive us.  Although Maybe is pretty low maintenance, not many people she knows would likely find a place for her.  As far back as I can remember, we always had dogs around, in the early years only one at a time, and later on a few at a time, and still later, dogs and puppies galore.  We did have a cat or several cats, but they never held the status of our dogs.  I could name all the dogs our family ever owned, except for the temporary foster dogs or the litters of puppies.  The first dog I remember was named Nellie, and my mother's last dog was Butchie the 2nd. 
     I guess it's not surprising then that my first interest in reading was about dogs.  I remember reading a poem found in a bookshelf  in Mrs. Flynn's room, which I attended for first and second grades.  The title was "Little Lost Pup" and I found it very sad, though it did have a happy ending.  "Oh, the saddest of sights in a world of sin is a little lost pup with its tail tucked in."  Mrs. Flynn also taught us one of those "act-out " rhymes:   "Whoever took my big black dog, I wish they'd bring him back.  He'd chase the big chicks over the fence and the little chicks through the cracks."  I didn't feel quite as sad about that dog, maybe because he was big, but more likely because I felt embarrassed doing the motions of simulating first a fence and then a crack in it.
  In third grade, I read a book called "Beautiful Joe," about a dog so ugly that a sensitive woman named him such to give him a better chance at life.    I don't remember much about the plot, but I do recall a scene where a maid spread some type of plague because she inverted a broom and used the end of it to mash a pot of potatoes, and all the germs fell into the pot.  Beautiful Joe must have done something to save lives, but I don't recall what it was.
   In fourth grade, while I was in the throes of suffering with Lassie while she was trying to find her way home, my father threw cold water on my ability to empathize with that heroic collie, and probably set me off on the road to cynicism at an early age.  I was recounting some of the cruel events and arduous travels that Lassie was enduring, and my father asked me how I thought those adventures had been recorded, with no humans present for most of her travails, and since dogs could not write anything down?   I was forced to reconsider that one, and ever since have been a skeptic.   I still suffered, though, through "Black Beauty."   Remember poor Ginger?  And Merry Legs?   And that horrible carriage driver?