Freckles
By Bob Stevens, The Muddled Male
I had a dog once. At least I assumed he was mine since my
parents were always saying things like, “Bob,
your dog needs fed,” or “Bob, you
need to clean up after your dog,” or “Bob,
your dog is digging up the neighbor’s flowers.”
We called him Freckles because his snout
was white with a sprinkle of black spots.
Our neighbors used other names. Take
Cleve our grumpy neighbor, for example.
Cleve looked out his window one day just as Freckles jumped gracefully
into the air to snag his teeth in the “back door” of Cleve’s long handled
underwear fluttering in the breeze on the backyard clothes line.
Cleve’s words were, as I recall, “you #@%^&~! dog let go of my
#@%^&~! underwear and get the #@%^&~! out of my yard.” Shortly after that we had to give Freckles
away. Not because of Cleve, mind you. It was more about his tendency to wander out
into the hills, roll in the rotting carcasses of dead deer, and then come
running home expecting to come into the house and curl up on the rug in front
of our living room stove. I am talking
about Freckles, now, not Cleve.
I have often wondered if we could have
kept Freckles had we worked with him just a little longer. Ann, my wife, has told me many times that I
would never have been properly trained if she had given up and just accepted me
in the condition I was when we were married sixty-one years ago.
Excuse me, I have to go. I just heard the command to “heel” …. or was she just calling my
name?
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