Meloncholy Fall and Dogs Of Our History

A definite tang of fall was in the air today. The cold front came in and the temperature never got much above 60 for most of the day. To top it off, it drizzled for major portions of the day. So much for my plan to mow the lawn today! As I buried my ears in the joy of listening to a couple of football games and occupied my hands sorting out junk valuable stuff for our upcoming garage sale, fall was in my mind.

One of the more interesting pictures I came across as I sorted was of our first dog, Sam (short for Samantha). That set me to thinking of all three dogs we have had over the 30+ years we have been married.

Our first dog was Sam:

 

We got Sam from the Los Angeles dog pound as a puppy. She was a mixed breed pit bull who was extremely loyal, like most of her breed. We choose her because she looked like she needed us the most - turned out that she was sick and the vet had to give her a few shots to bring her roaring back to full on friskiness.

The first night we had her, we put her in the kitchen with a plywood barrier to keep her in the kitchen since the rest of the place was carpeted. When we got up in the morning and came downstairs, who was out of the kitchen but Sam. She had considerately jumped over the barrier so she could poop on the carpet rather than dirty the kitchen. {*grin*}

We thought we'd lose Sam when she went through teething. She ate an entire wooden doghouse and didn't leave a scrap. We spend days anxiously waiting for her to die from an internal splinter. Sam was with us for years, until a bit after the the birth of the Son. Arthritis finally cut her spine and we had to put her to sleep.

Next came Beau (King Beauregard III):

The story of how Beau came to be with us was told here. Beau was with us from the time he was about three until his death of old age. He went from normal to deathly ill in just a couple of days. Beau lived a very long life for his breed and when he went down, it was fast. This was the dog that the Son was most deeply attached to.

Finally, we come to the current dog, Molly:

We got her from the local humane society. She is a border collie mix and quite a change from the sight indifference of Beau. If she can see it, she thinks she should be able to herd it. So not only is she the first sight hound we've had, she is also the first long hair. The long hair I could live without, but even short hairs of the breed shed a lot. I guess you just have to live with all the hair to have one of the most intelligent dog breeds. Sort of like people - you might have to live with a few warts to get the other good things.

Time to get back to the junk valuable stuff sorting. {*grin*}