Poochie

In my humble opinion, every young boy needs a dog. And before you call me a sexist, keep in mind that young girls tend to have many more relationships than young boys who are much more likely to be loners. I was one of those loners — by far the youngest of five kids, not very sociable, and always one of the last kids to be chosen for sports teams at recess.

As luck would have it, a kid in my first-grade class owned an AKC registered black Cocker Spaniel. She was an expensive dog and meant for breading show winners. She was also a bit of a floozy because she snuck out one night and got pregnant by some undesirable neighborhood mutt. Her owners opted to give the pups away. I got one and named him Poochie.

I assume my parents believed the dog would not only keep me company but teach me responsibility. If I didn’t feed Poochie every night, he went hungry and scratched at the back door all night. If I didn’t keep his water bowl full, my mother would point out that he was laying in the back yard panting, but she would NOT fill his water bowl.

He was my responsibility; I would either care for him or he would die. Consequently, I learned to do things that I didn’t feel like doing because I was responsible for another creature’s wellbeing.

But besides being his caretaker, I became that mutt’s best friend. Every day after school, I would wrestle with him and race him around the back yard. I even got my dad to help me make him a leash out of a rusty length of swingset chain.

As much as that old dog loved me, he was increasingly hostile towards strangers, especially boys. One day in the Summer of 1963, I found out why. Looking out my back door, I saw the older bully next door and his partner in crime poking my dog with a stick through our chain link fence.

Poochie was going absolutely wild trying to bite the end of the stick, and his shout was already bloody from the encounter so I did the only thing a seven-year-old could do. I walked outside and ignored the taunts of the two bullies while I opened the gate.

The result was that I got a very stern talking to from the local dog catcher in my parents’ living room while they looked on. But apparently, the dog catcher loved dogs more than he did bullies and opted to let me off with a warning. Afterwards, my parents piled on more ultimatums, but I could tell their hearts weren’t entirely committed to their threats.

The bottom line is that few things in my life have been as pleasing as watching that forty-pound dog put the fear of God into two bullies. I got a whole new perspective on how to leverage adversarial relationships that day, and word got around. Poochie had street creds.

Several months later, when the three brothers across the street were throwing rocks at me and I threatened to let my dog loose on them, they laughed until I headed for the gate, at which point they decided to play inside for the rest of the day.

Years afterward, when I was in high school and my dog was old and nearly crippled, I still fed him daily and wrestled with him on his good days. Oddly, even in his old age, my mother would not let that dog sleep in the house.

Fortunately, my dad and I had built him one of the finest doghouses any dog ever inhabited. In the Winter, we backed it up to a sheltered ell in our house and plugged in the lights that were under the floorboard to radiate heat. In the Summer, we moved it to the shadiest and coolest part of the back yard.

When I came home for Christmas my first year in college, the dog was gone and my dad told me with tears in his eyes that old Poochie had suffered a stroke and had to be put down. The circle of life was complete for my old dog, but I will never forget the lessons he taught me and the fun we had.

Sixty years later, I still cannot forget, nor apologize for, the site of my old pal’s snarling snout clamped firmly onto the bleeding butt cheek of the punk next door while that kid screamed like a toddler for his mother and his pal looked on in shear terror. Good dog!

A meeting of great minds who think alike