Dogs were in the Dog Pen

When I grew up, dogs were in the dog pen and we were in the house.

My dad loved dogs, just outside. I think my mother told me that the first time she ever saw my father, he was walking a dog, and she thought, I would never marry a man who has a dog.

Doral liked pedigreed dogs. He wanted them to have papers. He might spend months getting a dog with just the right pedigree. As well, the cocker spaniels or setters were hunting dogs. He liked to show them at Fields Trials, most of which were run on Sundays. He went to them until there was a time when he thought it was better to be in church with his children, than out competing for trophies.

Still he loved his dogs and he liked to train them for when he went hunting. I can remember being a little girl out behind the house and standing beside him. He had a piece of a hot dog in his hand and when the dog would obey his command, he would reward the dog. He was proud of his dogs and of their ability to fetch when told, or to retrieve a duck or a pheasant and put it right at his feet.

I am wondering now why I can’t remember any of the names of the dogs, though one may have been named Spot. Or was that the dog that Dick and Jane had in my Grade I reader?

We never played with the dogs. If they got out of the kennel they were long gone across the field before my dad knew we had tried to peek inside the pen at them. The dogs weren’t pets for us, so much as they were my dad’s hobby and his companions when he went hunting.

On that note, I can remember his red hunting coat and hat – a precaution for all hunters so that they didn’t get shot while they were hiding in the bushes. Those red jackets didn’t always work. One day Doral was hunting with a new hunter who saw the bushes rustle and then shot his gun, so Doral had lots of pieces of shot in his face. I can remember my mother picking them out with tweezers the day of and the weeks after the incident, for the ones that were buried deeper would eventually make their way to the top of his skin. I don’t think he ever went hunting with that guy again.

My gosh, I forgot about the duck decoys that were in the shed that was under our walkout south side back door. There was a steep decline from that back door, down the hill and to the basement door. That shed didn’t have a door. It housed tires, and the duck decoys. I think I can still smell that cold, dank musty, dirty smell of the shed. I know the walls were cement.  Perhaps the floor was dirt.

I didn’t set out to say all of that, only as background to the fact that we had dogs that were kept in a pen when I was young.

Steve and the boys have a dog here – a different kind of dog – an indoor family dog. She gets mixed up about her place in the house, sometimes forgetting she is a dog and confusing herself with being human. She wants to cuddle on laps. She is like any two year old who has a toy and wants someone to play with her.

"I think I will take a bite right here under the M".

She is in my bad books today.

I left Rebecca’s gloves on top of the shoe rack when I came in from my walk.

Usually I take my gloves to a mandarin orange box which is acting like my glove box in my bedroom, and at a medium height in my since I have a new interest in mittens and gloves.

But instead of acting on that habit, today I was disconnecting my earphones from my telephones and forgot about where I had placed the gloves.

Walking with my phone and listening to music is something I have only barely learned to do. As I have said before, my life is full of simple pleasures. Learning how to get earphones on and do an hour’s walk listening to music is a new one.

I forgot about the gloves. Rebecca brought one to me and said, “Look, here is another glove of mine you might want to wear, but it has a hole in it and it is newly wet.”

Whoops. That is one of her gloves I wore this morning. The dog must have playfully chewed a hole in it.

As I said, when I grew up, dogs were in the dog pen.

Arta