I have always loved dogs. From the time that I was a little boy to now as a man who has lived more years than I want to say, they have given me a sense of contentment. I truly don’t know why I have this love, but every time I see a dog, my heart melts. As I write this post, both of my dogs are huddled near my feet. They follow me around wherever I go, with a look on their faces that seem to say, “Hey Dad, what are we gonna do next?”
Movies and shows with dogs make me tear up, stories of their heroism give me wonderment, and the look in their eyes when they gaze at you directly fills my heart with something that I really cannot put words to. Maybe that is one of the myriad of reasons why I am no fan of Kristi Noem. For someone to publish in a book that she shot their dog because he wasn’t behaving as he should says a lot about her character I think.
My Life With Dogs, Part I
(I am going to put this post into two parts as I don’t have the energy nor the time to write that much in one sitting.)
My first dog was a German Shepherd named Fritz. My parents got him when I was a toddler. They had gotten me a cat before that, but after the cat was in the house for a few minutes, I began to wheeze. That was my first and last cat…it lasted about 30 minutes from what my mother tells me. There’s a photo of the cat with me that my mother still has. The cat was black and white.
Fritz was very protective of me. I have a vague recollection of him grabbing my arm and pulling me towards the house when I got too close to the street. My dad always said that he was one of the smartest dogs that he’d ever known. I think I was in the fifth or sixth grade when my parents had him put down. He had that thing that German Shepherds get, hip dysplasia.
There was a long lull between Fritz and the next dog. I tried my hardest to get my father to get us another dog, but he wouldn’t. One summer night between my junior and senior years of high school, my parents and my siblings went to a party on the lake. I remember very little about the party except that we had to take a row boat to get there from the shore. The party must have been on an island. My father got drunk at the party and on the way back across the lake to our car, he was quite belligerent. I can remember feeling very uneasy, and I can also remember wanting that boat ride to end. I don’t remember the drive home at all, but I am guessing (and hoping) that my mother was the one that was behind the wheel.
The next morning, when I came down to breakfast, my father, out of the blue, said that we were going to get a dog. I remember my 17 year old self disbelieving the entire scene. I think he had guilt from the night before. My father’s one stipulation was that we get a German Shepherd. So we did. I remember driving to the place to get him with a giant box to house him for the ride home. My father decided (there was no discussion) that his name was to be Schultz.
After all of those years of begging to get a dog, we got a dog one year before I was off to college, but I was just so excited that I would have a dog. Schultz became my dog, as I would spend a lot of time with him. We’d go for walks in the woods behind my family’s house, and I taught him all kinds of tricks. He was very intelligent and learned things quite quickly. I remember one night I taught him to fetch my mother’s slippers when she was out grocery shopping. It only took about an hour or so, and I got him to go upstairs, into my parent’s bedroom, find the slippers, and bring them back down stairs. If he brought one of them, I would tell him to go back and get the other one. And he would. My mother got home from shopping, and I showed her what he could do. I remember her laughing in amazement.
Something happened to Schultz mentally when I was in college. When I’d come home for break, he would give me a look that was menacing. It upset me because he had always been “my” dog. I remember one night coming home from a date and going upstairs to bed. He was on my bed and when I tried to get under the covers to go to sleep, he growled at me. It was a low guttural kind of growl that made me really nervous. I pushed him gently off of the bed, but I was spooked. I went back to school after that break, and my parents soon let me know that he had bitten the paper boy. He began to snarl and growl at people walking by the house. My parents decided to put him down as they were afraid that he’d hurt someone. I was home from college when the decision was made. It is the only time in my life that I ever saw my dad cry. I can remember I went with him to the vet. I stayed in the truck when he took Schultz in. When he came back and got in, I looked over at him and saw a single tear slowly drop down his face. I had never seen him cry before, and I would never see him cry again.
Fast Forward: I graduated college, got married, and started a family. As soon as my boys were old enough, I decided that it was time to get a dog. I did lots of research with books from the library (way before the internet) and I found myself drawn to the Westhighland White Terrier. Since I am of Scottish ancestry, this seemed like a perfect breed. Her name was Katie. She was a bit cuckoo though. She had many idiosyncrasies, but we all loved her. By the time my daughter was born, she began to act a bit odd, and became snappy. We were in Vermont vacationing with my sister and her family and I went to pick her up to put in the car to drive home to Virginia. She bit me. Not just a little nip, but a gnawing and painful bite. I had to go to the ER. When we got back home, we made the difficult decision to put her down as her head was at the same level as my 1 year old daughter, and we just couldn’t risk her getting bitten in the face.
As I am writing about these last two dogs, and their mental issues, I guess it would make anyone wonder two things. One, what kind of person I am to have two dogs become psychologically off, and two, why would I even try and get another dog after these two? Well, with Arlo (the dog listed below) and every other dog since, it has been smooth sailing in the psych department.
Then there was our Sheltie, Arlo. He was a great dog. His herding instincts were prevalent when we were outside in the yard as he’d circle us as if we were sheep. He was loving and fun. His only downfall is that he was a major shedder. It was always a battle to keep the floors clean. When he got older, his hearing began to fail, but he was still the same Arlo. We had just gotten new neighbors who had a pretty vicious pitbull. He would make me nervous because he was aggressive and would have this really menacing growl. One day when I was at school, my older son was playing with him in the back yard. He threw a frisbee for him to chase, and unfortunately the frisbee ended up in our neighbor’s yard. When Arlo went to retrieve the frisbee, the pitbull came out and snapped his neck. My son witnessed the whole thing. He cried for days and blamed himself. When I got the call that Arlo had been killed, I was still at school. The final bell had rung, but there were still a couple of kids in my room. When they saw that I was visibly upset, I told them that my dog had just died and that I needed to get to the vet. I ushered them to the class next door so that I could leave, and I remember some of them hugged me. Ah, dogs and kids.
As I am thinking about all of the dogs I’ve had, they resemble chapters of my life. One of the only downfalls of having a dog is the loss that you feel when they pass. Their lives are too short actually.
I will write about the next four chapters, Kali, Murphy, Shirley, and Murray soon.
Love to all,
Michael














































