No matter how little money and how few possessions
you own, having a dog makes you rich."
Louis Sabin
I have been lucky to have had lots of dogs in my life. They were almost all pretty good dogs and most of them were mutts.
My first dog, Happy, lived the good life that dogs lived in the old days. She was never fenced and wandered freely in the neighborhood, visiting and being welcomed into neighbor's homes at will. My parents got her as a puppy six months before I was born and she lived to be 14.
Trina was my first "child". We got her as a tiny puppy, a furry ball of white, right after I got married. When she was about 10 she went a little crazy. She started being so afraid of storms that she would hurt herself trying to get out of where she was and then trying to get right back in. A man that came to fix the carpet and woodwork she had destroyed during a storm offered to take her to live with him in the country. It was heartbreaking, but we let her go. My kids never did believe the story about Trina going to live on the "farm" but it was true.
There were a couple of dogs, Andy and Toby, after Trina. Andy was a stray, a spaniel mix, who came and stayed for a while and then just disappeared. We searched and searched but never found him. Toby was part poodle and part something else. The something else was part devil and we didn't have him very long.
Sasha, a Chow, was the sweetest, most loving roll-with-flow dog ever. (Well, there was the time she killed our friends rabbit when they were keeping her, but they said that it was a really mean rabbit.) She could shed her fur better than any dog I have ever known. She was always in the middle of everything the family did. She lived for 14 years and I will always miss her.
Dodger is the current dog love of my life. He is a scruffy, energetic boy who has us very well trained. Doc, who wasn't sure he wanted a dog, is now an expert on dog parks and doggy day care. The Doc and Dodger mutual admiration society entertains me every day.
Dogs' lives are too short. Their only fault, really.
Agnes Sligh Turnbull
