WHY I KEEP DOGS ...

I had a dog when I was a kid – a mongrel-mutt of 57 varieties. He was wandering around the neighborhood, obviously lost (probably, abandoned) and hungry; and he found me. Against every adult’s advice, I fed the dog. I watered the dog. I fell in love with the dog. Worst of all, I gave the dog a name – LOBO. By the time my mom found out about LOBO, she didn’t have the heart to tell me I couldn’t keep him. She had DAD build him a dog house. DAD even bought LOBO a chain. Boy, I learned to love that dog!

One day, just like every other day, I hurried home from school, rushed to the back yard to greet my trusted companion, LOBO … and he was GONE! I was crushed! I couldn’t tell if he broke off his lead or if he was stolen, all I knew was that my precious, new-found friend was gone. Why, he was probably out there somewhere, lost and looking for ME!

I searched for LOBO ‘til dark that day, and until my mom’s call for me turned into DAD’s screaming, “You get your @!** in here right now or I’ll …” Mom tried to comfort me, telling me LOBO was probably the wandering type. She said he probably had other friends (not better than ME!) or maybe, he was such a ‘good looker’, he did get stolen! A few years later, I learned DAD had taken him to the pound while I was in school. I never kept another dog, until…

In 1982, I married a single mom that loved kids; she had four. She also loved babies, babies of any kind; neighbor’s babies, babies in the grocery store, babies on TV. She also loved puppies; Samoyed puppies! She loved the breed, she loved the people who loved the breed, and she loved to take care of the dogs. I just mowed the lawn and became the official ‘pooper-scooper’ at our house. Up until a few years ago, the dogs we kept were my wife’s dogs. Then, we had a litter of puppies; then another litter; and another.

I couldn’t help but love the little balls of fur with their freckled bellies and long, white eyelashes. Plus, I learned that puppies can grow up to be loyal companions who love their families constantly and unconditionally … better than any friend I had ever known. Besides, DAD was dead; there was nothing he was going to say about me keeping puppies.

So, twenty-something years later, my wife and I are still married. We’ve raised our four kids, and now, we have seven grandkids. We also have dogs; dogs I’ve come to fall in love with; dogs I’m going to keep forever!

I take my dogs most everywhere I go, one or two at a time. Most other people like my dogs. We are always invited into stores and old-folks homes and youth centers. People know my dogs by name, and, when I don’t bring them with me, they ask, ‘Where’s Beau?’ … ‘Did you bring Kira?’ … ‘Gee, I haven’t seen Dickens for ages!’ YEP, everybody remembers my dogs by name … but, they only remember me as THE GUY WITH THE WHITE DOGS.