To All the Dogs I've Known

Last Monday Tinah, one of our Country Roads-ters, came to work having taken her dog, Bacchus, to a litter reunion at the Burbank Dog Park on the weekend. Bacchus, a one-year-old Doberman, had a wonderful time tearing around with his dad and four siblings, and Tinah said it was eye-opening to see how different from one another the dogs had grown. This was the first time I’d ever heard of a litter reunion. But I suppose it makes sense that, if you buy a dog from a reputable source, as opposed to accumulating them willy-nilly because you’re unable to pass forlorn-looking puppies in roadside ditches, it might be feasible to stage such a get-together. All our dogs have come to us via the latter method, and because we live in a sparsely populated corner of rural West Feliciana parish—a spot popular among deadbeat dog owners for dumping unwanted animals—there are always opportunities for increasing the size of our pack.

That said, 2014 was a bad year for dogs in the Fox-Smith household. In the course of twelve months we lost three. Buddy, a black lab/retriever-cross with a handsome white blaze on his chest, was the only one who could be said to have lived a full, long life. Tending solitary in his old age, Buddy took to disappearing into the woods for long periods. Eventually, like Captain Oates, he went out for a walk from which he never returned. A week later our son found him stretched beneath a glade of trees beside a pond in the woods, where he had laid himself down and breathed his last. Sizzles: a winsome, prematurely gray, so-ugly-she’s-cute terrier-mix with hair like a toilet brush and a penchant for rounding up reptiles, was bitten in the eye socket by a venomous snake of some kind—an injury so awful the vet couldn’t save her. Theo was a pit bull/Hungarian viszla (probably) cross who, true to form, we found by the side of a road. Three times we drove past this dejected little puppy, telling ourselves that we just weren’t pit-bull people before his enormous brown eyes got the better of us. The moment the car door opened Theo came at a full-tilt gallop, leapt clear into the car, and landed on my startled wife Ashley’s lap, radiating enough untrammeled joy to dispel any doubt about where he belonged. In the eighteen months that followed, Theo proved the warmest, most affectionate, devoted, intelligent dog we’ve ever owned. He was our kids’ constant companion, a dedicated running partner to Ashley, chicken protector, mediocre but enthusiastic swimmer, and born entertainer. His undoing: an all-consuming passion for chasing delivery trucks that no amount of aversion therapy could cure. One chilly November evening we came home to find a package on the doorstep and Theo dead on the side of the driveway. Not two years old. I miss him every day. 

You’ll hear people describe themselves as “dog people” or “cat people.” And although we maintain cordial relations with a soporific, extraordinarily entitled cat named Tang, it would be accurate to put us in the “dog people” camp. During the twenty years we’ve lived in rural West Feliciana we’ve never had fewer than two dogs of dubious breeding on the premises. Now there are none, which is a sorry state of affairs. 

Dogs live in the moment. And since doggy nirvana presumably consists of living unencumbered by leashes and fences, amid woods and fields full of things to chase, country life probably fits the bill from their perspective (fleas and ticks notwithstanding). So long as there’s a reliable food source and a porch to snooze on. Many’s the day I would look out a window and spot one pooch or another in ecstatic pursuit of a deer, rabbit, squirrel, or UPS truck, and grin with pleasure at the obvious joy they were experiencing. Sadly though, these attractions do not make country life the safest for your average, active, red-blooded canine—a fact that explains both the dog attrition rate, and the utilitarian attitude towards animal longevity that you often observe in farm folk hereabouts. 

Since we live on a former farm but work in the city I suppose we’re a weird amalgam of the two. We like that our dogs get to run free, but we pine for them when they come to grief. We’re not that good at letting go, and the place is far too quiet without any four-legged companionship. So we’re keeping an eye on the roadside ditches for the next mongrel puppy in search of a place to call home. Better still, perhaps we’ll go formal and pay a visit to St. Francisville’s James L. “Bo” Bryant Animal Shelter, a no-kill facility run by the West Feliciana Animal Humane Society that takes in homeless and abandoned dogs and cats, vaccinates and spays or neuters them, then works hard to find them good homes. Sometimes they even find themselves with whole litters of pups on their hands so who knows! There might even be a litter reunion somewhere in our next dog’s future, too.