Here’s One For The Dogs, Literally

I recently read an article that flat out stated we may not understand Daisy, Rover, or Fido like we ought to. One sentence caught my eye, “People interpret a dog’s emotions based on its situation and have a ‘a big blind spot’ for the actual animal.” I wouldn’t normally pay much attention to such trivial nonsense, except it was in The New York Times.

So, it must be true.

I immediately went to thinking about all the dogs I need to apologize to. Poor Trixie, I never paid much attention to her. She was small, and spent most of her time running around the house like she owned it. She wouldn’t chase a rabbit, never caught a mole, and mostly she would pull on your pants leg at supper begging for a bite of chicken or a crumble of cornbread.

She got run over by a pickup truck about the time I started to the first grade. I cried. That ought to count for something in the dog world.

Duke was the best dog we had growing up. He was a big fellow. And he chased rabbits, cats, birds, cars, other dogs, and anything else that ran by when he was young. But he figured out one day he was doing a lot of chasing, but absolutely no catching, so he found him a spot on the porch and waited for you to come to him.

He played baseball with us. He couldn’t hit worth a flip. But we let him pinch run for the slow guys. And he covered a lot of ground in left field. He wouldn’t catch a high fly ball in the air, but you let it take a hop and he’d grab it in his mouth and near ’bout beat you to second base every time!

He walked to town with us. He’d play in the concrete goldfish pond in the center of the square. He’d sit on the steps of Mr. Woodrow Kennon’s Grocery Store and not bother anyone. And no matter how long we stayed in the Park Theatre watching the Saturday afternoon double feature, ole Duke would be waiting for us when we came out.

Sometimes we treated him more like a person than an animal. I don’t know what The New York Times dog writers would say about that.

Duke was an outside dog. By his own volition. When we finally got a TV, we had to coax him inside to watch “Lassie.” His favorite show was “Rawhide.” Gil Favor would start those cows up the trail to Sedalia and Duke would be all over our living room, barking and heeling those longhorn steers along.

That dog could keep you up all night. He’d run an old coon, or sometimes a neighbor’s cat up a tree in the backyard and bark at that thing without ceasing. I’d get so exasperated I’d put my clothes on, climb that tree, and chase whatever was up there halfway to Como just so Duke would shut up!

He was about the best listening dog in all of West Tennessee. I’d tell him what went wrong on the hayride, or who was, or who was not, at the swimming pool that particular day. He’d lay on the porch with his front legs crossed and nod a bit when you mentioned someone he knew.

He heard so many stories about girls I wanted to date that he’d go to shaking his head if I mentioned Cynthia Wheat or Kay King. It was a little hard to understand him at times. I had to lean down pretty close to see if he was nodding approval….or moving back and forth a bit sideways in disapproval.

He actually growled at the young lady from Cottage Grove who came out to the house to visit. Believe me, both of us got the message, loud and clear! She didn’t come back, and I never went down to Cottage Grove again, ever….

Hank was the last dog I owned. He stared running with me when he was six months old. He grew into a 120-pound mini-horse. And you talk about being in shape. In the 12 years we had him, he ran 9,600 miles with me. Always with a smile.

He was pretty imposing when you met him running down Garrison Avenue, but he was gentle as a lamb. And he was another great listener. Of course, I’d been married for 35 years, so he wasn’t around to help me choose Cathy. He did growl, however, when I was retelling that story about the ancient girlfriend from Cottage Grove.

I don’t know if I ignored his inner feeling like the Times suggested. But we loved Hank so much, we never sought a replacement for him. And I cried again, when he left us.

I may not have understood Trixie, Duke, Hank, or the 17 dogs we had in between them like I should have, and for that I sincerely apologize to one and all. But I can double dog (no pun intended) guarantee you, each one was a faithful companion, and they all understood me when sometimes nobody else did.

And maybe that is what owning a dog is all about….

Respectfully,
Kes
kesley45@aol.com