Riks history of dogs
My two older sisters tell me that I was about one year old when our dad brought home a black Cocker Spaniel that we called Cindy. We’d just moved into a house in the rural parts of Hennepin County, west of Minneapolis. I think the dog got her name by being black as cinders, rather than the Princess Cinderella. It doesn’t matter, because Cindy she was, and for 15 years she was my companion. Through thick, thin, snapping turtle attacks and nosey neighbors Cindy was there with me. She went missing shortly after my 16th birthday, and I found her floating in the swamp behind our house. Darn sad moment for me and my father. We’d lost my mother a couple of years earlier and one thing on top of another, old Cindy had been the constant memory . We were not hunters by any sorts, though she was always beside me as I wandered through the many new housing developments springing up, including Southdale. We chased Redwing Blackbirds, squirrels, and rode with Roy Rogers on imaginary chases.
Always a dog as a companion.
Just after Cindy left us, I ended up dating a pretty young girl named Nancy whose family had a brown and white Springer. That dog was a great friend too , through about 1973 when she died.
Nancy and I added a son, Geoff, to the mix in 1970, and around 1974 he suddenly decided that he was afraid of dogs. Oh no, I thought, no kid of mine goes without a dog and no kid of mine can ever be afraid of dogs,
Move forward to 1974.
Nancy is a nurse; I am working three jobs while finishing my last year of studies at Mankato State University. Geoff, age 4, and I found Kerry The Fire Dog in a backyard litter of pretty white and tan mutts. The name and title come from a Golden Book for Children and the name Kerry was perfect. Good old Kerry. She helped raise Geoff and then Matt and keep the squirrels and chippies at bay at four different homes until 1990. She died at Secret Lake while the kids were putting the boat into the water. She loved the boat. She’d sit up on the bow seat, ears flapping, just waiting for anything to happen. Old Kerry would NEVER get her feet wet, but she loved the boat. It was a sad burial for The Fire Dog. Wrapped in an old Charlie Brown blanket that Grandma had made when one of the boys was in the crib stage. Kerry got a regal send off.
Not to be without a dog ever again,
We got Casey, a blonde cocker Spaniel. That didn’t work out so well. He turned out to be a bitter and a snarly little rascal. We always said that he was a good citizen 98% of the time, but watch out for the other 2 %. He left us in 1992, after Sag joined our family.
Sag is short for Saganaga Lake. We now name our dogs after lakes where we’d had good times. Sag was all male. A big, happy Labrador retriever. Bursting with fun, hard work, intelligence and love. No stick or ball was ever left unfound. Even when tossed as far as the eye could see. No downed grouse, ever got left behind. A ball in the water would be chased until dark and he wore out four or five teenagers at the ALS Fishing tournament weigh-in station in 1995. Clearly, the perfect dog for Secret Lake and the active family that surrounded him. He got love and gave even more right back.
Knowing that Labs were the dogs for us, we picked up a yellow that we named Birch. The color of autumn Birch leaves, and also a pretty nice lake just a little north of home. Birch, or Birchy as she was known, was the opposite of Sag. She was quiet, very calm and didn’t care for guns. Terrified of nearly everything except being petted. In fact, we’d joke that she was like art. Art in a gallery is only to be looked at. You cannot really use art for anything except it’s loveliness. And that was truly Birch the dog.
It was a sad January of 2002 when good, old, Sag lost his battle with cancer. The cancer had attacked his hips and it was causing great pain, but even on his last day on earth, he brought a stick up for me to throw. He was a charmer, a goof ball, and a marvelous friend. A dark time for our family hit again.
Then, my neighbor Marty Davis calls and says there’s a litter of Labs being born up near Grand Rapids and he wondered if I would be interest in one. He already had dibs on one and I would be the second. Yep. A perfect idea. A few weeks later, we brought home Rainy. (Another lake dog)
Rainy had a hard task in replacing the reputation of old Saganaga. But she did it in her own, calm way. Not boisterous and Rainy like Sag, but instead she was quiet and moderate with way too much intelligence for this old man. A great hunter and squirrel chaser. She retrieve dropped fish, carried dirty clothes to the laundry room and licked me awake at 2:40 am if I was dozing through the “get-to-work” alarm. She was always there to cheer and always the one to clean up the dropped Cheetos.
I never imagined that she would leave us so early. After just 8 years, again, the cancer attacked. If got her in the worst spot. Her great big, loving heart. The vet said a tumor grew on the sack around the heart and stole her right to live.
Of all the flea bitten, balls of flying fur I have had in my house, it was Rainy that really stole my love. The emptiness that we have in these four walls is appalling.
After doing a little math, I find that this is the first time since 1974 that our family is without a four legged friend. God I miss them. How do we let them, so easily, get into our hearts? The really good dogs (or cats) should be given permission to last forever.
We will get over this. We always have. Perhaps in a couple of months., that same kennel will deliver to us another Rainy that will steal our hearts again.
This is the longest thesis I’ve written since college. I ask you…..Why?
