Stan Yokell's Blog

DOG STORIES

For those of you who have canine friends, I have written a book of dog stories about dogs I have known and others I have met. I intend to publish these on this blog one at a time before putting them out in book form. Here is the list of stories.

Stanley Yokell

Beauty
Whitey
Pat
Tough Shep
Wookie
Shep
Pug
Wags
Scraps
Pinky
Harrigan
Paschka
Marvel
Jed
Windy
Other Stories

Our town, Boulder, Colorado, has a wonderful system of open space on which there are many hiking trails. Our favorite walk is on the Bobolink Trail that runs along Boulder Creek. It is our favorite because, in addition to the natural Beauty of the prairie on one side and the tree-lined river on the other, it is the place that dog lovers and dogs run free and where every spring young parents bring their children and baby sisters and brothers. We love the dogs and we love the children.

The City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks website does not refer to dog owners; it calls people with dogs their Guardians and lists dog parks where dogs may be free of leashes, tells dog lovers when their friends must be leashed and the voice and sight control rules for when they need not be leashed.

The dogs have a wonderful time, sniffing here and there, frisking in the creek, carrying sticks. Once we met a dog carrying a stone in his mouth that he guarded like a precious possession. The surest ways to have friendly conversations are to admire someone’s canine companion or baby.

I never put my hand out to a dog I don’t know, and always ask the dog’s companion if it is alright for me to pet one. But almost every dog I ever met has come up to me and licked my hand and often my face. Young ones frequently jump up on me in excitement. I know why I am attracted to dogs – I hardly ever meet one that I would not like to have as a friend. I don’t know why dogs like me. Perhaps it is how I smell or they like my voice. Whatever the reason, it gives me pleasure that dogs respond to my greeting and rarely object to my scritching their bellies or patting their heads. It may be anthropomorphism, but I truly believe that dogs smile at me as I smile at them.

On our last walk on the Bobolink Trail, my wife Edie and I enjoyed meeting a little dog with short legs, a big shaggy dog, two retired greyhounds, a Spitz, a chow, some German shepherds and dogs with and without pedigrees all loved by their companions, and many soaking wet from splashing in the creek.

It was a warm, sunny day and dry as only Boulder can be. Edie and I sat on a flat rock for a rest and a drink. Both of us were ready to doze off. In my reverie I thought of all the dogs that have known me from earliest childhood to old age and of random encounters with some along the way. These are some of their stories.

Beauty

Beauty, a pure white Spitz was the first dog who loved me. I had been weaned from Mother’s breast and remember walking around with a bottle of milk and often sharing with Beauty licks of the rubber nipple on the bottle. My sister and two older brothers were in school so Beauty and I had each other to ourselves.

Our kitchen stove had gracefully curved legs that set the range and oven a couple of feet above it on a tiled rectangle bounded by wooden molding. The tiles were small white hexagons carefully fitted to each other. The space under the stove was an ideal place for a little boy and a dog to nap. Mother would wake us both to make sure we got out doors. There never was a time when she didn’t send us out with, “Go out doors and play. I’ll call you for lunch (supper). Don’t talk to strangers. Both of you stay out of the mud and come when I call you.”

Mother loved to cook and bake. All the while she worked in the house she sang in a sweet and melodious voice – songs that I can sing to this day. She always cooked special treats for Beauty, who loved her dearly. In fact I often thought that Mother loved Beauty more than me.

Beauty guarded me. She wagged her tail at friendly neighbors, always keeping a respectful distance. But when a stranger, who might be a hobo or a collector of old clothes came near, Beauty stood between us, her tail high but no longer wagging. If she thought a stranger came too close, there would be a quiet throaty growl of warning.

Mother told me that once I took a hair curling iron to try to curl Beauty’s hair. She said that Beauty patiently sat while I messed around with her beautiful coat that mother brushed every day. And she said that Beauty licked my dirty face clean.

In addition to Beauty, our house was home to a canary, goldfish and guppies that lived on our glassed-in sun porch. Whenever Mother opened the door of canary Dickybird’s cage, for his daily fly around the sun porch, Beauty would lie on her rug near our big rocking chair and watch.

Dad kept a flock of pigeons in a coop on top of our flat-roofed garage. He had fastened a ladder to the side of the garage that faced our yard full of roses. Beauty guarded the pigeons against marauding cats. She did not bark at cats, just chased them. But whenever a pigeon hawk circled above, she would become very agitated and bark and bark.

Dad’s relationship with dogs was not like Mothers, mine or my brothers. His heart lay with the flock of pigeons. The flock had the most beautiful birds – White Owls, Tiplets, and my favorite, a pair of Red Tumblers. Nevertheless, each Sunday when Dad walked the two blocks to the newspaper store, he had a four-legged companion. Dad would walk back from the store reading the paper. Beauty, and later on Tough Shep and Shep would walk in front of Dad, always keeping a respectful distance. If Dad stopped to talk to a neighbor, his companion would sit or lie down until Dad continued on his way home.

About the time I turned four, I began to wander. Mother gave up trying to get me to stay put, possibly because Beauty wandered with me. Every day, she warned me not to make a fire and not to take candy from strangers. To make sure I could get home, I memorized the words on street signs and mail boxes. That led to my learning to read before I entered kindergarten. I never lost my way but was always confident that if I did Beauty would take me home.

The time came when I had to go to school. I was jealous that Mother and Beauty would be with each other without me. School was a little more than half a mile from home and Mother walked there with me the first day. When she left me at the classroom door she said she would meet me for the walk home, but I was anxious to see Beauty so ran and skipped as fast as I could. I met Mother and Beauty just as they were coming down the steps to the street. Mother never tried to meet me at school again. But Beauty was always waiting not far from the school. She would greet me with a wagging tail and smiling face. Don’t think that dogs can’t smile. I know they can and I know they can cry when they are sad.

The summer after I turned nine, Aunt Bess, convinced Mother and Dad to send my two older brothers and me to summer camp in the Berkshire Mountains of Massachusetts. Mother and Dad drove up with Beauty for parents’ week. We had caught a copperhead snake and had drowned it in a basin of water. It was a hot Sunday and we had been throwing a ball for Beauty to retrieve. After one long run, she lapped up water from the basin with the dead copperhead.

Beauty died from the poison in the basin. Nothing we did could save her. I cried as hard as I had ever cried. I couldn’t get over mourning for Beauty. Mother rescued a little white dog from the ASPCA shelter in the hope it would end my sadness. That is how I met Whitey.

Whitey

Like Beauty, Whitey was all white and female. But the resemblance stopped there. Beauty had curly hair; Whitey’s was smooth and close to her body. Whitey cared not one bit about dignity. Beauty would never beg for treats. But Whitey was an inveterate beggar. She would ingratiate herself by offering her paw or licking your hand. My brother Eugene had started his lifelong love affair with German Shepherds when a friend, who no longer cared for her, convinced him to bring home Pat, a handsome female.

Pat was a one-friend dog and Eugene was her one friend. But Whitey and Pat became intimate friends. Even when they were both mature, they played with each other like puppies. It was one of the few canine friendships I ever saw in which both dogs shared their bones and their food.

Whitey was the quicker and more volatile dog. She chased cats, birds and mice, making runs even at the occasional praying mantis that visited. At the time, I made a home for a snapper turtle in our back yard. Whitey would attack unsuccessfully over and over. The turtle simply pulled in her head and legs. She was too unwieldy for Whitey to turn over.

Whitey lived mostly indoors as had Beauty. But Eugene had fenced off the narrow space between our house and the house next door with back and front gates and built an accommodation for Pat who was uncomfortable indoors and not welcome because of her size. Whitey took every opportunity to share Pat’s quarters. Neither of them was spayed. When Pat was in heat, the gates kept potential suitors at a distance. But Whitey would slip out under the front gate for amorous adventures.

That’s how she became pregnant with five puppies. When her time came to give birth, she had a terrible time because the puppies were too big to emerge from the birth canal. Whitey was in terrible pain, crying and moaning. I stayed with her bringing her water which she lapped frantically between yelps. She would not touch food. I was afraid she would die in puppy birth. So when I saw a tiny head in her vaginal opening, I washed my hands and reached in to help her first born into the world.

The puppy was the cutest little black and white creature you could imagine. Whitey licked it clean, let me take the puppy, cuddle it and put it into a box with shredded newspaper. Then she concentrated on the business of giving birth to her four other puppies. I could not imagine how she could have all five puppies inside her. When they were all together in their box they seemed to be as big as she was.

So now there were seven dogs living with us. As the puppies suckled and grew, my brothers and I became more and more attached to them. We really believed that Mother and Dad would let us have our seven friends. But it was not to be.

Mother and Dad told us the facts of life at the dinner table: (1) they would have Pat and Whitey spayed; (2) we would have to offer the puppies to friends and neighbors in need of canine companions; (3) if that didn’t relieve the population pressure, we could advertise their availability in the local paper; and (4) if there were still puppies living with us, Mother would contact the Bide-a-Wee organization that found homes for dogs. No one mentioned taking them to the pound to be “put to sleep”. I hated that expression much as I hate “euthanize” when you really mean. “kill”. To our great relief, Mother explained that the Bide-a-Wee organization has a no-kill policy.

There was no problem finding homes for Whitey’s puppies. The part of Brooklyn where we lived was still rural with many small truck farms. The farmers, who were mostly Italian immigrants, all seemed to need canine companions. They were friendly and smiled warmly as we said goodbye to our little friends.

One summer day, many of us kids were playing stick ball on the street in front of our house. A manhole cover was home plate and we marked first, second and third bases with chalk. Pat and Whitey watched through the front gate.

The trouble with playing stick ball on a city street is that automobile traffic interrupts play. We had become adept at avoiding oncoming cars while keeping the game going. Drivers were blind to the 20 mile per hour speed limit posted at both ends of our street so we were very careful to give way as cars sped along. We paid little attention when the German lady who lived two doors down from our house put her cat out the front door. But Whitey’s ears picked up and when the cat strolled by in front of the gate, Whitey dashed under to give chase. The cat scooted across the street with Whitey in full chase giving no thought to the speeding car racing down the street. I screamed, “Whitey”. But it was too late. The driver never so much as braked. I picked up her poor broken body. I will never forget the look in her eyes as she died in my arms with her blood staining my shirt.

Pat

Once again I was in mourning for a beloved friend. Mother was very discreet and didn’t offer to find me another. But this time I had company. Pat stopped eating. She had always responded to Eugene when they played the pull-the-rag game in which she kept one end of an old towel in her teeth and he would pull the other. But now, she just let go. She didn’t bark at cats and she didn’t patrol her space, just lay still with her head between her paws.

Eugene tried everything to cheer her up. He was concerned when she began to lose weight. He got lots of unsolicited advice – mostly to get Pat another companion. But Eugene knew his friend would not switch her loyalty to another. He got permission to have Pat live indoors with us and I guess the smell of Mother’s cooking induced her to start eating again. But she was a changed dog. Although her only real friend was Eugene, she hardly paid attention to him any more.

To give her a treat, Eugene got Dad to drive him and Pat to a farm in the Catskill Mountains where he would help out on the farm and Pat would be a farm dog. He came home without Pat. Later he told me that Pat took to the farm as if it had been her only home. She cheered up as she did her rounds with Eugene and the farmer whose old dog had died. The farmer became very attached to Pat and made a case that she did not belong anywhere but on a farm. The farmer had a way with dogs and he and Pat became fast friends. Eugene told me that he and Pat both cried when he left for home without her.

Tough Shep

We were without canine companionship for a long time. Mother was pregnant with my new brother Arthur but we didn’t know it because she was full figured and just didn’t seem any different to us. I was going to be eleven on my next birthday and thought I had finally convinced her to stop calling me Baby.

We kept asking when we were going to fill the void in our lives without a dog in the family. But Mother wanted a dog to be with us as much as we did, because she wanted protection for the little girl she thought she was carrying. And she told us a horrible tale from when she was a girl about a cat that jumped into a carriage and scratched a baby’s eyes out. So Mother wanted a guardian for her baby.

That’s how it was that Mother and her three sons made a trip to the Bide-a-Wee. So many dogs called out to us to be their friends as we walked through the aisles. But one named Shep was too dignified and austere to beg for friendship. He was a big, strong, proud Shepherd Collie who barely smiled or wagged his tail. Our vote was unanimous and he came home with his new family. I call him Tough Shep because we also named his future replacement from the Bide-a-Wee Shep.

Tough Shep had very firm rules about how he interacted with our family and strangers. In the household, he would accept food and water only from Mother or me. He was very particular about not being interrupted when he was eating. If you came too close to his dish, he would warn you with a growl. When Dad went for the Sunday papers, Tough Shep made it his business to walk a stately 20 feet in front. He never laid down when Dad stopped to talk with neighbors but stood like a statue until Dad moved on again.

Tough Shep didn’t deign to play the pull-the-rag game. He would just drop the towel. But he loved to chase balls or sticks that we threw. He would race after the prize, come back, drop it and wait patiently for another throw and chase. Tough Shep paid no attention to Dad’s pigeons. But no cat dared to cross his path. He was the only dog I ever saw that caught a pigeon hawk that swooped down to attack a bird on the ground.

Tough Shep would tolerate pats on the head. But he never once turned over to have his stomach scritched. He never offered his paw when asked and he never begged for a treat. He would sit and lie down when asked and responded slowly and with dignity to “Heel”. I respected him much as I respected Dad and Dad’s friends.

On a sunny April afternoon, I came home from school playing marbles and mumblety-peg with my friend Charlie all the way. Sister Ruth was in the sun porch crying with Tough Shep lying near her to offer comfort.

“What’s wrong?

“Your mother had another Goddamned boy is what’s wrong.”

Soon our beautiful little brother was home with Ruth, Eugene, Bernard and me. Tough Shep made it his business to be where Arthur was, which made it hard for Mother when she bathed the baby in his bathinette because Tough Shep stationed himself as close to it as he could.
Mother always believed that children should be out-of-doors as much as possible. So very soon she put Arthur out in his carriage early in the morning. Except for changes of diapers and similar matters Arthur spent his early days in his carriage on the concrete apron that led to the stairs to our house from the sidewalk. Tough Shep stationed himself between the carriage and the sidewalk. He took no notice of passers by. But if someone approached the carriage from the sidewalk, Tough-Shep’s ears went up. Then he stood. If the stranger approached too near there would be a low, throaty growl. And if one dared to set foot on the concrete apron near the carriage, Tough Shep would simply clamp his jaws around the ankle.

Aunt Pearl Irriberry and her common-law husband raised pedigreed Chows. They were both judges of Chows at dog shows. When they were not judging, they entered their Chows in shows. Their champion was named Wookie. He was as spoiled as could be. Aunt Pearl would not let us pet Wookie for fear we would spoil his carefully tended fur. Wookie acted as if he owned whatever ground he walked on. It took only one visit of Aunt Pearl and Wookie for Tough Shep and him to become bitter enemies.

One warm spring afternoon, Mother, Ruth and I were sitting on the steps in front of our house. Arthur was in his carriage and Tough Shep was at his usual station. Tough Shep’s ears went up and he stood up with the hair on the nape of his neck ruffling. He had smelled Wookie who Aunt Pearl was walking on the sidewalk across the street. Tough Shep was growling and as Aunt Pearl and Wookie came even with our house, he dashed across the street. I had seen dog fights before, but not one as vicious as this. Very soon Tough Shep had Wookie by the throat. Wookie’s fur was so thick that Tough Shep’s teeth did not pierce his flesh. But Tough Shep was shaking his enemy back and forth.

“Get your goddamned mongrel off my dog. That son-of-a bitch is ruining Wookie’s chances to win a ribbon in the show.”

Aunt Pearl used more vigorous language than that. Her command of invective and street language astounded me.

By the time I was eleven I had learned not to try to intervene when two boys got into a fight. I figured it was a sure way to get a bloody nose or a black eye. I surely was not going to try to get between two big, powerful dogs, with their enormous canine teeth.

There was a garden hose hooked up to a tap in our across-the-street neighbor’s front yard. There was also a galvanized steel garbage can at the curb. I turned on the water and set the nozzle for full force. I held the cover by its handle to use it as a shield and advanced on the combatants squirting the water at their mouths. We all got soaking wet, but I succeeded in getting the garbage can cover between the two mouths. I wrapped my arms around Tough Shep’s middle and pulled him away from Wookie. Aunt Pearl slipped a leather loop around Wookie and pulled him away.

The fight was over, but not Aunt Pearl’s anger and vituperation.We were afraid that Aunt Pearl would have Tough Shep designated a dangerous animal to the dog catcher and have him killed. Once again, we said goodbye to a good friend who took up residence on a farm in the Catskill Mountains.

Wookie

Aunt Pearl Irriberry lived with her daughter Lovey, our widowed Big Grandma and my Aunts Jane and Millie and the Irriberrys’ dog Wookie. Lovey’s real name was Abbey Louise but Aunt Pearl, never having been formally married to Leo Irriberry, called her Lovey because she was their love child.

We called my grandmother Big Grandma because at about five feet tall, she was six inches taller than Dad’s mother who we called Little Grandma. We did not speculate about why Aunt Pearl didn’t live with Lovey’s father but spent most of her time with him.

Big Grandma made the most delicious strudel and all of us kids made it our business to help get them eaten in time for Big Grandma to bake another batch. Wookie never failed to growl at us. It may have been my imagination, but I believed that Wookie had a very distinct and unpleasant smell that to this day I associate with Chows. His smell was certainly not because of lack of washing. Aunt Pearl cleaned and brushed Wookie daily. We all thought that she spent more time with Wookie’s appearance than with Lovey’s even though Lovey was always dressed in pretty clothes and patent leather shoes.

Wookie was one of two dogs I met to whom I took a strong dislike. It was mutual. He never failed to growl when I came into Big Grandma’s house. But he always condescended to try to snatch a strudel. I wouldn’t give him a crumb.

Perhaps he disliked me because I smelled from Tough Shep who each day patiently let me brush his beautiful black coat with its shiny white breast patch. Tough Shep did not lick my hand or show other signs of affection. He was far too dignified for that, but I took his letting me brush him, and once letting me take a burr out of a front paw as signs of affection.

Wookie was the canine equivalent of a spoiled brat. If he didn’t like the food in his dish, he scattered it all over the floor. Aunt Pearl would talk baby talk to coax him to eat. And she would buy special cuts of meat to mix with his kibble to entice him to eat the diet prescribed for a beautiful coat. Wookie would pick out the choice morsels and scatter the kibble.

Once I suggested to Aunt Pearl that she treat him like Mother treated me when I didn’t like what she served. Mother would not give me anything else to eat until I had eaten what she put on my plate. Aunt Pearl told me she could not be cruel to animals and would certainly not withhold food from Wookie. She clearly implied that it was OK for Mother to mistreat me but it was not OK for her to mistreat Wookie.

Wookie did not like children. He yapped at kids playing ball in the street, growled at kids on the way to or from the school he passed when Aunt Pearl walked him. He especially disliked postmen. On two occasions Wookie went after Big Grandma’s carrier who had the presence of mind to drop his mail sack on Wookie’s head, much to Aunt Pearl’s anger.

It took some time after his fight with Big Shep for Wookie’s fur to return to a condition suitable for Aunt Pearl to show him in the Dog Show, which I think took place in Madison Square Garden. I don’t know how the judges decided it, but Wookie won a blue ribbon for “Best in Breed”. Mother said, “If that mutt is best in breed, Chows can’t be much of a breed.”

She disliked Wookie as much as I but to keep the peace never said such things to her sister, with whom there was a sisterly love-hate relationship.

Aunt Pearl never failed to tell Mother that our dogs were mongrels just like her children and that we did not deserve to have a Chow that Wookie had sired. Calling us mongrels was Aunt Pearl’s way of disparaging Dad who had come to America from Latvia while Aunt Pearl was native born. Mother’s response was always the same. “Wookie’s pedigree and a dime will get you a ride on the fifth avenue bus.”

What I could not understand was that Aunt Pearl forbade Cousin Lovey to play with or pat Wookie and that aside from their both living in the same house, there was no relationship between the two. We always treated our dog friends as members of the family, took them on our picnics, swam with them, played ball with them and played the tug of war on the rag game with them. It was always comforting to sit and read with a dog lying nearby.

But Wookie seemed to have no sense of family just a sense of his importance to the world. When Leo Irriberry died, Aunt Pearl, Lovey and Wookie, who was now old, moved to Florida. I never saw Wookie again. I didn’t miss seeing him.

Shep

We couldn’t be long without canine companionship. Mother and her three sons made another trip to the Bide-a-Wee kennels. For me, it was love at first sight when I saw Shep. Eugene and Bernard agreed that Shep, this handsome Shepherd-Collie, was just the friend we should have. Mother did not need convincing and Shep came home to live with us. He became my bosom companion from that time on.

Mother knew how strong the bond was between Shep and me. He died when I was serving in the Navy during World War II. But Mother did not tell me until after I came home from the war. She said, it was bad enough for me to be in danger from enemy fire, but losing a friend like Shep would have made things worse. She was right.

I could write a book about Shep and me. We spent the five years from when I was 12 to 17 together all or part of every day. When I went off to dormitory life at college, I came home every weekend that I could. Shep would greet me with a big smile and wagging tail. Sometimes I thought his eyes questioned why I wasn’t with him any more.

Shep had many characteristics that matched my own. He loved to wander but never failed to arrive home for dinner. Mother said he had learned that from me, but it wasn’t so. It was just that his way happened to be the same as mine.

When Shep came to live with us, I was in the second half of the fifth grade at an elementary school located about half a mile from home. Shep took to following me to school. I would turn and say, “Shep, go home!”

He would turn and walk a few steps. But I knew that as soon as he thought I believed he was on the way, he would turn and follow again. Thus it was that one bright October day he managed to follow me into the classroom. Our school rooms were fitted with combination benches-desks and Shep hopped up onto one of the benches and sat down. Our teacher was blessed with a sense of humor. Even better a dog lived with her. She looked my way and with a broad smile asked, “Does anyone know our new student’s name?”

I raised my hand, “Shep”.

“And do you know where Shep lives?”

“In my house.”

“Well, Stanley, can you take Shep back to your house?”

I did.

Mother laughed for a long time when I explained why I had come home. “Here Shep, I’ll give you private lessons.”

She handed Shep a milk-bone treat and closed the door with me outside and Shep inside, where he could not slip under or jump over the gate of our fenced yard. School let out at three. Shep managed to meet me every school day. I carried a soft rubber ball in my pocket and we would play throw and chase all the way home.

My teacher was not married. I think it was because she loved the freedom to travel to far away places like the ones we read about in the National Geographic. She made our geography lessons fascinating by showing us pictures she took in some of the places we were studying. She was a great story teller and used that talent in teaching English. She must have told the story of Shep’s classroom visit to the faculty.

Toward the end of the term some of my classmates and I were selected to take intelligence tests to see if we would be accepted to new experimental Junior High School. It was several miles from home and necessitated a trolley ride. When our principal talked to us about how to behave and what an honor it was to be selected he finished his talk looking straight at me.

“The people at the Junior High will not administer the intelligence tests to canine students.”

There was laughter all around.

Next Spring, on the day before my birthday, we moved to a new home in the Flatlands section of Brooklyn. Brother Eugene built a doghouse for Shep that we lined with left over strips of the living room carpeting that Mother had purchased. We put the new doghouse outside the steps to our finished basement. Above the steps was a back porch on one side of which was a high picket fence that separated our nearest neighbor’s property from ours.

There was a large driveway between our house and the neighbor on the other side. Dad had a high wrought iron gate built across the entry which led to a stand alone garage. The back yard had a high, wooden perimeter fence that with the wall of the garage and the back of our house enclosed the property and separated it from the fields that stretched to the next street. This gave Shep ample room to patrol the place. The high fence and gate did not prevent Shep from roaming. When he had the urge to explore, he simply took a run and jumped over the fence. It did not take long for the neighborhood to have many puppies that looked a lot like Shep.

Two doors down lived a family with two boys, one about my age and the other two years younger. They had a nasty bulldog living with them. He had one blue eye and one green one. The older boy, Elliott and I became fast friends. Pug and I did not. Neither did Pug and Shep.

Shep did not mind wearing a collar. But he absolutely refused to wear a muzzle or walk on a leash. When we went out walking or running together, he always stayed close by and came to me if I called him and sat or lay down if I got busy with some activity. Just as Tough Shep had done, Shep accompanied Dad every Sunday morning to and from the newsstand.

Dad had built a large pigeon coop on a platform with four legs and ladder near the back fence. He was concerned that the Norway rats that made their home in the field would attack the birds, but he needn’t have feared because Shep kept them away. He also kept the numerous stray cats away from Dad’s birds.

Although it was illegal to fire a gun in the city streets, Eugene, Bernard and I took turns using Brother Bernard’s twenty-two, single-shot, bolt-action rifle to fire at the occasional rat we spied in the field. Sometimes we would fire at pigeon hawks that circled overhead. Although we practiced target shooting in our basement and became expert marksmen, none of us ever hit either rats or hawks. It was only by good luck that one of these shots never hit anyone either.

Mother and Dad planned to spend August of the summer I turned 13 in New Hampshire where for some reason Dad did not suffer from hay fever. Until then Dad assigned me a variety of chores. But I did have lots of free time to play ball with my friends and sometimes a game of monopoly. We called it monotony. One of my chores was to clean Dad’s pigeon coop, a chore I did not enjoy although I loved being with the pigeons. Another was to sweep and wash down the driveway leading to the garage.

On this day, Mother reminded me that Dad wanted the place cleaned.

“I’m going to see Aunt Sarah and this would be a good time for you to sweep and wash down the driveway. Dad wants you to clean the grit from the pigeon coop and put it into a barrel out front too.”

I had the front gate open to haul dirt out to the street. Shep was on the street near by when a white dogcatcher’s truck pulled up in front of the driveway. Dogs crammed into the cage were barking, growling and yelping. Seeing creatures confined in small spaces makes me shiver and I wished the dogcatcher would go away. But he came after Shep with a leather loop. Shep was far too wily to be snared and he backed into our driveway growling with the dogcatcher following.

“Get off our property.”

“Get out of my way kid. That mutt has been getting away from me and now I’ve got him.”

“This is private property and you can’t come in here.”

“You gonna stop me?”

Shep could easily have escaped by jumping over the back fence, but I was angry over his calling me kid and thinking I couldn’t stop him. I ran upstairs, grabbed Bernard’s gun, shoved a round into the chamber, ran downstairs, cocked the gun and pointed it at the dogcatcher.

“G’wan kid. You ain’t gonna pull the trigger.”

I took careful aim at his shoe. “One more step and I’ll fire.”

He took a step.

I aimed at the heel of his boot and pulled the trigger knocking off a piece of leather.

He got into his truck and left.

I shut the gate, put Shep in the house, took Bernard’s gun up to his room, cleaned it and put it away. I decided to stay in the house.

Soon I saw the dogcatcher’s truck pull up alongside followed by a black and white police car. The officer got out and rang our doorbell.

“Whose there?”

“Son, I’d like to talk with your mother.”

“She’s not here.”

“Will you open the door and let me in to talk to you?”

“No. Do you have a warrant?

They left.

Dad got home late from work tired and hungry. He asked if the pigeon coop had been cleaned and the driveway swept.

“Yes, Dad”.

“Good. I didn’t see the dog when I drove in to put the car in the garage.”

“Oh! I put Shep in the basement.”

“Why? It’s not cold out.”

I sought desperately for an excuse. I could not lie to Dad and in any event, could not think up a good story.

“He was barking a lot.”

I didn’t say that he was barking at the dogcatcher. Well at least I told some of the truth.

Dinner over, Dad let the pigeons out for a fly around, whistled them down and came in to read the evening paper. The dusk settled into darkness. The doorbell rang. Dad put down his newspaper. Mother went to the door.

“Max, there is a policeman and someone else at the door.”

Dad went to see what it was about. He turned on the front door light, stepped outside and had a conversation with the policeman. Soon he sent for me.

“Did you shoot at this man?”

“Yes sir”.

“Why?”

“He came into the driveway with a leather loop to try to take Shep in. I told him this was private property and to get out of the driveway. He told me, ‘Get out of my way kid. That mutt has been getting away from me and now I’m going to get him.’ When I told him he couldn’t come into the alley, he asked who’s gonna stop him? So I ran upstairs and got Bernard’s gun loaded it and brought down a box of shells. I pointed the gun at his foot and told him that if he took another step, I’d fire and I cocked the gun. Then he said, ‘G’wan kid. You ain’t gonna shoot me.”

So I took careful aim at his shoe and pulled the trigger. I could see a piece of his boot heel fly off and he got back in his truck and drove away.”

“So you’re a good shot. What would you do if you hit him somewhere else or God forbid killed him? Now let me tell you something. You are never again to point a gun at anyone unless you are prepared to kill him. Go upstairs and get the gun and all the ammunition.”

Dad’s face was very serious and he was angrier than I could remember. I ran upstairs and brought the gun down with the ammunition. Dad disassembled the bolt from the gun.

Dad turned to the police man and the dog catcher. “You had no right to come on to private property.” Dad, who had emigrated from Riga, Latvia, had studied the constitution when he was getting ready to take the citizenship test and he knew all about its first ten amendments.

The police officer, “But it’s against the law to fire a gun in the city.”

Dad, “I think that defending our property gives us the right to fire a gun anywhere. Otherwise the second amendment wouldn’t mean anything.”

The police officer shook his head and got into his car with the dogcatcher.
Dad turned to me.

“I’m locking this thing up until you and your brothers learn that shooting at people is not like shooting at targets.”

I took Dad’s words to heart. I don’t know where Dad hid the twenty-two. We didn’t see it again for nearly a year. Brother Bernard had conflicting emotions about what happened. On the one hand he was very proud that I had chased the dogcatcher off our property. But on the other he was very angry that I had used his gun without asking and because Dad had locked it away.

Things quieted down for a while after that. Unlike Elliott’s friend Pug, who would attack, unprovoked for reasons of his own, Shep almost always came with us when my friends and I played Chinese handball, stickball, roller skate hockey, baseball and similar activities. If a ball went too far out for the fielder to catch it, Shep would make a dash, bring it to me and drop it. The only times he didn’t accompany me was when I went on bike rides. Memories of Whitey’s being run over made me very cautions about having Shep where an automobile could hurt him.

We had come back from a vigorous game of softball. I was tired and sweaty and Shep lay down in the yard near Dad’s pigeon coop. To one side of our house lived a family consisting of a mother, father, nasty, aggressive kid named Ronnie around my Brother Arthur’s age and a mother-in-law. Ronnie regularly bullied my little brother until Arthur had had enough and gave him a bloody nose. Our family maintained cold but correct relations with our neighbors.

Ronnie’s grandmother did not like dogs. She especially did not like Shep and could not understand why we did not tie him up but let him patrol the driveway and back yard.

Every afternoon, she would stand on our neighbor’s back porch with a hose and nozzle and water their lawn and flowers. On this afternoon she took it into her head to direct the stream at Shep who leaped up to avoid the hard cold stream. But she followed his every move with the hose. I was outraged. So I picked up our garden hose, turned it on full and squirted her from top to bottom.

That led to a rancorous demand by Ronnie’s mother for Mother to punish me. Mother agreed with her that it was disrespectful for me to hose down Ronnie’s grandmother. Mother sent me into the house with instructions to stay in my room until supper time. I felt defiant but spent the next few hours reading. But Mother made the point to Ronnie’s mother that his grandmother had no right to hose down Shep.

Dad came home, flew his birds, washed up and the family sat down at our big dining room table for supper. Dad asked his usual questions about what had gone on at home while he was at work. I looked down at my plate as Mother told him of my hosing down Ronnie’s grandmother. I thought Dad would add a punishment. Instead he began to laugh so hard that tears rolled down his face. Soon all of us were laughing, especially when mother described Ronnie’s grandmother as mad as a wet hen. When things had calmed down, I heard Mother’s familiar, “You should only have a son like you when you grow up.” But this time she said it fondly.

The following summer, Mother and Dad spent August at a hotel in Bethlehem, New Hampshire. They took my brother Arthur, Shep and me along with them. There wasn’t much for me to do and the hotel management insisted that we chain Shep to an apple tree on the hotel grounds except when I walked him on a leash. He insisted that when I walked him on the hotel grounds, that Shep wear a muzzle. Shep had no use for leashes which he quickly chewed through and even less for muzzles which he managed to get off every time I reluctantly put one on him.

Both of us were unhappy. There were no other kids around my age and Shep hated being chained. The hotel had a small band that played between risqué skits that some comedians put on for the guests’ entertainment. One of the musicians suggested that I take Shep hiking in the nearby mountains. I thought it was a great idea. So we walked to the south end of town and found the trail to Mt. Agassiz, a small mountain that I recollect to be about 2400 feet high. Shep ran loose on the trail. He sniffed all the wonderful new smells, chased after small creatures that scurried away too fast for him to catch and had a wonderful time. I picked up and held a toad for a while, found a salamander and came across a snake or two. It was a glorious time for the two of us.

Unlike the higher White Mountains, the summit of Mt. Agassiz is covered with stubby trees and other plants. But it was great to walk all around it. Until the sky suddenly blackened and it began to thunder and lighten. A thunderbolt struck too near for comfort and we ran down the trail. We returned to the hotel soaking wet just as the sun came out again.

That was the beginning of many years of Shep and me tramping around together in the White Mountains. I cobbled together a blanket roll, a World War I knapsack, web belt and canteen and wore breeches and hat from a boy-scout troop that I left as a tenderfoot. To earn the money for these things and the topographical maps that showed hiking trails I set pins in a hotel bowling alley. At twenty-five cents a frame and tips it took a long time to accumulate much money. But sometimes one of the bowlers who had had too much to drink would tip me a dollar.

I did not even think of buying a tent. The cost was prohibitive. But the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corp.) had improved trails in the mountains with corduroy log fillers in swampy areas, wooden bridges over streams and built leantos all shown on the topographical maps. I would pick a site and Shep and I would hitchhike to the trailhead. Mostly we got rides with farmers in their trucks or station wagons, all of whom seemed to look kindly on a boy with a dog, blanket-roll and knapsack, obviously dressed for hiking.

Mother was comfortable with my hiking with Shep to protect me. Overnight hikes eventually became week long ones that took considerable planning for our meals. My goal was for Shep and me to climb all forty-six peaks over 4,000 feet high in the White Mountains.

Next summer Mother and Dad rented the house of a family named Churchill who supplemented their income from their dairy by moving into a summer house and renting out their main residence. It had a wood-burning stove for cooking and wood burning ones for heating the rooms and a well from which an electric pump drew water. I had grown considerably and split all the wood for the stoves. The man who supplied the cordwood saw me splitting logs and offered me a job that paid five dollars a cord. A couple of weeks of hard work and I had enough money to fund the season’s hiking and climbing.

My plan to climb all of the Forty-Sixers eventually took me to Mt. Washington, the highest mountain on the northeast coast. I planned to climb by way of Tuckerman’s Ravine. But it had rained steadily for a couple of days and the trail was soggy and slippery. There is a motor road to the summit, but walking up a paved road didn’t appeal to me. However, there is cog railway that takes tourists to the summit and I decided to walk up that way. It was funny to see Shep carefully pick his way up the ties on which the tracks lie.

We were on a trestle that curved across the ravine when I heard the train coming. So I took Shep in my arms and carefully climbed onto the structure below the tracks. When the train had passed, we went back up and continued the walk. It wasn’t much fun and I wouldn’t have done it again if I had the choice. Finally we got to the summit where Dartmouth College maintained a guest facility. A State Police cruiser was parked in front. As we stepped behind the upper station of the cog railway, the trooper arrested us. An elderly lady on the train had seen us climbing under the tracks and fainted.

The trooper took my name and wrote down Shep’s license from his collar. I told him where we were staying and he called Mother to come and get us. He was very serious in front of the crowd of tourists when he told us that we had broken the law. But I could see that part of him was laughing about the whole thing. He released us in Mother’s custody. All the way back to Bethlehem I heard, “You should only have a son like you when you grow up.”

I had to promise Mother to never again go off a marked trail before she gave me permission to go hiking again. We succeeded in climbing all the Forty-Sixers. I signed my and Shep’s name on the records kept on the tops of them all.

In September 1939 at age seventeen, I entered New York University’s School of Chemical Engineering in its College of Engineering located in University Heights, the Bronx, New York. I moved into the Gould Hall dormitory, from which, except when I had to cram for exams, I went home weekends. Shep greeted me with wagging tail and licks and barks. No sooner was I home than he brought a towel to play tug of war or a ball for me to throw and him to chase. When I had to leave for school Sunday night his eyes told me he did not know why I was going away again.

I was home on December seventh, 1941 when the news came that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. I enlisted in the Navy, eventually serving as Executive Officer and Engineering Officer of an LST that saw combat in the Pacific Theatre. Shep had grown old. He died when I was overseas. No one told me until I came home. I was devastated that I had not been with my friend at his last moments.

Pug

Pug was the other dog I could not stand. He had a perpetual case of snoring even when he was awake. I could not figure out why sometimes he would come up and lick my hand and let me pat his head and other times would sink his teeth into my shoe and not let go.

Unlike Shep, Pug didn’t get to roam, so Elliott and sometimes Elliott and his brother Henry would call for me to come for a walk with them and Pug. If a dog could swear, Pug would be one that swore at every passer by, every other dog and sometimes Elliott and Henry. Nevertheless, they were his loyal friends.

Sometimes when Elliott called for me with Pug in tow, Pug would slip out of his collar and go barking at the birds in Dad’s pigeon coup. Shep would go after Pug and there would be a lot of nastiness between them as he drove Pug back to where Elliott was standing.

There is an old W.C. Fields movie in which the actor says, “Anyone who hates dogs and kids can’t be all bad”, after which a dog lifts his leg and pees on him. Pug must have seen the movie because he tried to pee on my leg. I jumped away and launched a kick. He dodged it and sunk his teeth into my shoe.

Mother and Dad were not happy about my shoe’s appearance. Dad asked for an explanation. “You’re lucky you have shoes. Some boys’ families are so poor that they have to wrap their feet in rags.”

I knew that in the old country not all of Grandma and Grandpa’s children had shoes and that typical of Dad he gave his to his brother Abram and wrapped his own feet in rags. But that is not what went on in Brooklyn then – at least not in the part of Brooklyn where we lived. But I did not argue with Dad, just explained what happened.

“Why did he try to pee on your leg?”

“Dad, he is a crazy mutt and I don’t know why. I pulled my leg out and tried to kick him and that’s when he grabbed hold of my shoe and pulled it off my foot. Elliott had to pry his mouth open to get my shoe back.”

“I don’t want you near that dog again.”

But Pug was Elliott’s friend and Elliott was my best friend and I disobeyed. But I made sure to keep my distance from Pug. Shep had no use for Pug and never even sniffed around him. But the two of them regularly marked various trees to indicate their territories.

Whereas Shep would investigate garbage that people put out at the curb but never dig into it, Pug would invariably rip into it to look for choice morsels. That’s how he got a chicken bone caught in his throat. Elliott’s older brother Sid, who was a medical doctor, had to anesthetize Pug so he could remove the bone.

Mother said, “Serves him right.”

It was the only time I ever heard Mother say something negative about a dog except for Wookie.

But Mother and Dad were good friends with Elliott’s parents and they never mentioned how much they disliked Pug. Elliot’s mother Bertha and his dad Ed, couldn’t understand why Mother and Dad always insisted on their playing cards in my house, but I knew it was because neither of them could stand Pug’s constant snorting. Possibly another reason was that the diet that Elliott’s family fed Pug made him pass lots of gas. Elliott’s parent’s thought it was funny and had got used to it but Mother and Dad did not.

Pug died when Elliott was a B-17 navigator in Europe during World War II. Elliott did not learn of Pug’s death until he came home. The losses of our friends bound us together.

Wags

Human cruelty to and neglect of dogs is a paradigm for the cruelty that humans exhibit to each other. Of course not all of us are cruel to and neglect dogs and not all of us are cruel to each other. But there is enough to go around as any student of the bible or victims of demagogues and racists can attest.

Wags was just such a victim of human callousness and neglect. Our circumstances from the time I came home from the war to the time of which I am writing made having a canine friend live with us too difficult to extend the care to which a dog is entitled. But our two older children were of an age where they wanted to have a dog live with us. So when our daughter June brought home a wet, cold, stray puppy and begged to have him live with us, we gave in.

The puppy was hungry and thirsty and had obviously been put out to fend for himself. June named him Wags because of the rapid tail wagging that any friendly word elicited.

Wags had been with us just a few days and we were preparing to get him licensed and examined by a veterinarian. But we wanted to feed him up a little because his ribs showed through his coat. We gave him quarters in our warm finished basement because he had been so cold. June made him a bed of old towels and set aside a dedicated water and food dish.

I came home from work one evening and went down to visit with Wags. When I stroked him, I realized that he was shivering despite the heat in the basement that had me perspiring. We had a rectal thermometer in the house and I took Wags’ temperature. It was about 104 °F. A healthy dog’s temperature should be about 101 °F. I suspected distemper, a very contagious viral disease that is very often fatal. I didn’t know how to tell the children. Canine distemper can infect humans, but not if you have had measles or been immunized against it. All of us had either had measles, which is a related virus, or had been inoculated against measles and were protected, so I was not concerned for our health.

I couldn’t be certain that Wags had distemper and planned to take him to a veterinarian as soon as I could arrange for time off from work. But when I came home from work, Wags no longer wagged his tail and there were signs of diarrhea wherever he had been. I never got to take poor little Wags to the veterinarian. He died that night. Despite pleas for a backyard burial, we contacted the animal control folk who took Wags body away. A backyard burial could have transmitted the disease to other unvaccinated animals.

If you care about your dog friend, be sure to have a veterinarian examine him or her as soon as possible and immunized against canine diseases. If you no longer want a canine friend, please don’t just turn the dog loose in the streets. Find a farmer who needs another dog on the farm or find a lonely person who needs a friend and introduce them. It is immoral to be cruel to animals (or people).

Scraps

We hadn’t got over Wags’ death when my Sister Ruth called to complain about the dog who lived with them who her husband Stanley had named Scraps. I think he named him Scraps because he had the notion that you can keep a dog inexpensively by feeding him table scraps.

While some table scraps may be acceptable, many come from food that may not even be good for humans let alone for dogs. Dogs need simple diets, low in fats and oils and high in protein. Their ancestors ate the meat from creatures they hunted, not dairy products, starches, vegetables, grains and beans. It is better to feed dogs who live with us canned or dry food made under supervision of veterinarians trained in canine nutrition than the kinds of things we eat.

Ruth’s complaint was that her husband Stanley was not succeeding in civilizing Scraps.

“All he does is shout ‘Bad Dog’ and hit him with a rolled up newspaper. I don’t know why he wants a dog to live with us anyway. I never saw him pat one or play with one like we always did and I hate to see Scraps cringe when he sees the rolled up newspaper. The other day Scraps chewed up a slipper while we were out and Stanley had a fit.”

So Scraps came to live with us. Scraps was a handsome curly haired fellow of uncertain ancestry, mostly black but with a little white around his chest. He was very fearful when I picked up the morning newspaper and looked for a place to hide. I would not dream of hitting a dog but it took a long time for Scraps to become comfortable around newspapers.

It was soon easy to see what the problem was. Scraps was a highly energetic dog interested in everything around him. His inquisitiveness matched mine and his need to run and explore and excitement over what his explorations revealed were like my children’s. We welcomed him into our family. We had many tugs of war with old towels and he was tireless in demanding that we throw an old tennis ball for him to fetch.

He more or less trained himself not to mess or pee in the house or at least it seemed that way to me. We never called him a bad dog or shouted at him. He quickly learned to sit and lie down when asked and to come when called. He did not even seriously object to being walked on a leash which our town required.

During the start up of my business, my colleagues and I had agreed not to take any vacations until the business could sustain them. Now we had reached that point. Edie’s parents arranged for us to rent a cottage in the town of Port Henry, New York on the shore of Lake Champlain. It came with a rowboat. As soon as then nine-year old Mike launched the boat, he had Scraps for company. Except that every so often Scraps would jump out of the boat and swim to shore.

We visited with Edie’s parents in Elizabethtown (E’town) who were some of my and the children’s favorite people. They always welcomed us cordially and put themselves out for us. I thought of Edie’s Dad, Sascha as a valuable friend. Especially, since he had a way with dogs, always greeting them on his rounds, he being the town’s doctor and Edie’s mother Manya its dentist.

Scraps came with us of course. He made himself comfortable in the woodshed at night. Daytimes we would frolic in the Bouquet River which flowed alongside the property. But Scraps did not have much knowledge of or sense about skunks. I think he thought of them as cats that had to be chased. Thus it was that one lovely summer evening a skunk came by on its rounds. Scraps gave chase. The results announced by his yelps were predictable. We were supposed to drive home in a day or so. The thought of the four of us sitting in the car with the ripe odor of skunk was not appealing.

Neighbors offered advice. “Wash him in Tomato Juice”.

“No, that won’t work, soap him down with lye.”

“Soak him in a detergent bath.”

“Try one of those new-fangled enzyme cleaners.”

I tried tomato juice. That mess did not work. I disregarded the suggestion to use lye. I wanted to stop the smell not kill Scraps. I soaked the poor fellow in a detergent bath interspersing washes with clear water and detergent. It hardly worked. Finally I covered Scraps’ eyes and sprayed him with the strongest underarm deodorant that Stevens Drug Store carried. Spray and wash, spray and wash until the stink was almost tolerable. We drove the nearly 300 miles home with the windows open. I sprayed the inside of the car with deodorant.

Next trip to E’town, I thought about the wonderful times I had roamed the mountains with Shep as my companion. I thought it might be fun for Scraps and me to climb Giant Mountain. I made it to the summit and down in one effort. But Scraps climbed and came down at least five times, running after every creature we encountered.

One of the farmers who lived in the vicinity observed how Scraps loved to run free. He suggested that keeping a dog like Scraps in a suburban town was unfair and that he really belonged on a farm. He talked to Scraps and it was soon evident that they had established a relationship. I would not take the money he offered for Scraps, but simply said goodbye to my friend.

Pinky

Mike’s friend Stuart’s dog gave birth to several puppies. Mike was intrigued, especially by the liveliest pup whose coat was as close to a shade of pink as I have ever seen. Typically, Mike did not ask if we could have a canine companion live with us, just brought him home in his arms.

June, always conscious of colors and patterns, immediately named the little fellow Pinky. He was a welcome addition to the family, but there were problems. I was working long hours, often including Saturdays and sometimes Sundays so had little time to treat Pinky properly. While both Mike and June loved Pinky, neither would take the time to walk or feed him or to fill his water dish. This put a great burden on Edie.

Our back yard was enclosed by a white picket fence, and I built a dog house for Pinky. But Pinky did not care to be confined in the yard and managed to either dig under the fence or squeeze through the spaces between the pickets. Memories of Whitey’s death flooded back the first time Pinky took off. So I stretched a cable the length of one side of the yard with a small pulley that could traverse it to which I attached a long leash hooked to Pinky’s collar. This gave Pinky lot’s of running room, but wasn’t as satisfactory as if my two older children would pay attention to him.

To make matters worse, our youngest child Larry Jay, who had recently learned to walk, would often pick up Pinky’s water dish and hit Pinky on the head. I don’t know why, and we could not get him to desist. Despite all these problems, Pinky remained a good friend, lying next to me on the glider on our porch during the few times I had enough leisure to read.

Next door lived a girl named Nancy who was about June’s age, and they became friends. But Nancy was accident prone. She usually had bruised knees or elbows from a fall or stumble, and one time fell out of our easily climbed willow tree. There was dissension in Nancy’s home and it had its effect on the dog who lived with them. He barked and barked for no apparent reason and often escaped out their front door to run down the street when one of Nancy’s parents opened it to get away from the loud arguments that they had.

On one such occasion, he ran into our yard through the open gate. Pinky was outraged at the violation of his territory. The intruder was not smart enough to stay out of Pinky’s range and Pinky bit him. It took a long time for matters between us and our neighbors to calm down over that incident.

Edie was terribly upset over our children’s neglect of Pinky and my lack of time to be a good friend to him. In the limited time I spent with Pinky, I would brush him, wash him and pet him. But it wasn’t enough. Edie carried the burden of making sure he got enough to eat and drink. It put a strain on her, especially because she was trying to help out with our finances.

Remonstrance had no effect on Mike or June; they were just too self-absorbed to be good friends to Pinky or to provide the care to which he was entitled. The final straw for Edie came when Pinky took a nip out of Nancy. Edie made good her threat to find another home for him. I could not find fault with her decision but I vowed that I would never again invite a dog to live with us and to this day all my contacts with canine friends have been with other people’s companions.

Harrigan

Mother and Dad bought a lovely place in Bardonia, New York – about 22 acres with a stone house, small barn half of which Dad converted to a pigeon loft and half to storage space for his tractor and tools. It became a place for monthly meetings of a cousins club made up of my parents and their children, children’s wives and husbands, their children and the large number of my cousins, their spouses and their children. But no one ever came with a canine companion because Dad did not want his pigeons disturbed and Mother did not want her Harrigan to be upset.

Harrigan was a cocker spaniel who my mother spoiled rotten. She bought special meats and cooked them just for him. He acted like a spoiled child, resenting it every time Mother hugged one of her many grandchildren. He was not above snatching an ice cream on a stick from one of the younger ones. Mother thought it was funny, said not a word to Harrigan and simply brought out another ice cream.

My sister and two older brothers were bringing up their children to be very respectful of Dad. They were being raised to be so respectful that there was hardly a relationship between the children and Dad. All was politeness, all was distant and there was handshaking but no hugging and kissing.

But from the day our son Mike came into the world, he was no respecter of persons. He took a special liking to his grandfather, climbed on Dad’s lap as soon as we got to the picnic and made himself at home there. Dad loved it. He especially loved Mike’s quick responses to Dad’s questions.

“How many quarters in a dollar?”

“Four.”

“How many nickels in a quarter?”

“Five.”

“How many dimes in a dollar?”

“Ten.”

And that would go on until Dad tired of it, lifted Mike in the air to smiles and giggles and set him down on the grass. Needless to say there was disapproval of how we were raising our children.

Mike's fluency with numbers charaterizes his whole life. It was no surprise when on graduating from MIT, he turned down a teaching fellowship in physics to eventually earn his doctorate in economics.

Dad did not particularly care for Harrigan but tolerated him because Harrigan was Mother’s friend. His distaste for Harrigan rubbed off on Mike. Whereas I always made the effort to greet and scritch Harrigan, Mike would barely acknowledge him. So when Harrigan tried to snatch an ice cream from Mike, Mike resisted. Harrigan jumped on Mike and knocked him down. From that day to this Mike has not had a canine friend except for his short affair with Pinky.

I did not realize that it was not because Mike is inherently unfriendly to dogs but that Harrigan’s attack on him made him fearful until many years later. It was summer and the two of us were doing a hard bike ride up a canyon to a town at the canyon’s end where the reward for the climb was delicious ice cream. As we approached the general store that sold the ice cream a large, shaggy, friendly dog ran out to greet us. Mike, as skilled a bike rider as I have ever known, fell off his bike trying to get away from him. I jumped off mine and made a new friend, much to Mike’s amazement and consternation.

Unlike Mike, our younger son Larry grew to love and appreciate our canine brethren. That’s how I met Paschka.