"If there are no dogs in heaven, then, when I die, I want to go where they are.” — Will Rogers
I grew up always having dogs around. Both my parents had been raised with the dogs as an integral part of the household, so it was natural to follow that pattern.
When they married on Christmas Day 1935, Dad immediately acquired their first dog, Rex, a white Collie with sizable black and caramel spots. When I arrived on Mother’s Day 1937, there was that great dog that looked after me as a big brother might. When I began to walk, there was Rex. He hung around until I was 11 and a crotchety, animal-hating neighbor put out poison around his yard and that was the end of Rex.
At one point though, Rex had a “brother” canine, a black and white Australian Shepherd that Dad labeled Ted (I never knew why).
Rex was around for the birth of the next two sons. Ted joined the family about the time third brother arrived.
Often Mother would have to work in the garden, which was about 100 feet from the house and a fenced yard. It was my assignment to watch after the younger ones, more particularly the latter since he was a toddler.
Our house was a pier and beam and the dogs often slept under the porch (whoever heard of a doghouse at a farm home in those days).
One day when Mother was tending her garden, I was standing on the porch watching the toddler play in the yard 6-8 feet away. All of a sudden, a snake raised up (appearing to be almost the height of the toddler) and I froze in terror. Unknown to me, Ted was under the porch, just beneath where I stood. He came racing out, bounded and caught the snake precisely behind his head and began to fiercely shake the serpent. Snake parts flew all over the yard as Ted sent him to snake hell (where else?) in a hurry.
Before we “moved to town,” Ted disappeared and Rex, my brothers and I adjusted to city life, that is until the ornery neighbor did his evil deed.
Naturally, we soon found another dog, an English bulldog puppy that was so nervous and jittery that I named him Jiggles. Unfortunately he couldn’t out-jiggle distemper and died before he had a chance to mature.
There was a bit more of a delay before we adopted another dog. This time it was a Chow-Australian Shepherd mix, rust colored with some black markings. He was just a ball of fur when Dad brought him home, so I dubbed him Fuzzy.
It is said that Chows are one-person dogs and while Fuzzy wasn’t antagonistic toward anyone in the family, he didn’t tolerate anyone else “invading our turf” without specific direction from me. He hung around most of my high school years but ultimately lost a battle with fast traffic.
Meanwhile, our next door neighbors had a little fox terrier named Trixie they’d acquired as a pup several years earlier. They’d spayed her and she consequently became plump enough that she sort of waddled around. Apparently, we paid enough attention to Trixie that she hung out at our house. When her owners moved several blocks away, Trixie found her way “home.” Dad saw to it that the little dog got to come into the house in the evening when he arrived from a long day at a cattle auction. Even though my mother had a rule of “no dogs in the house,” he’d coax Trixie into the house with baby talk and spring-load Mother in the ticked-off position.
I had little exposure to dogs in my home for many years after that. However, after retirement, we adopted this little ragamuffin Tibetan Terrier, Sawyer. This fastidious little dog – he licks and cleans his body much as a cat would – is an in-house dog, sharing our furniture, our laps and our bed and sort of rules the roost. I’m sure Mother is turning over in her grave, although before she passed on, we took the newly acquired puppy to meet her and she fed him her famous “teacakes” while he laid on her sofa with his head in her lap.
Yeah, we’re a dog-lovin’ household.
Willis Webb is a retired community newspaper editor-publisher of more than 50 years experience.
