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Monday, April 14, 2008

Dogs and People

This is Steven Petrick posting.

I grew up around both dogs and cats. I like both, although I have an attitude towards dogs that they must "work" for a living. By that I mean if I had a large enough yard and income to support having dogs, I would have dogs and cats, but the dogs would have the additional duty of "guard dog" (and I would hope that the cats would fulfill various rodent control duties . . . but they are cats).

Perhaps, growing up, that attitude came across to our dogs.

We seldom had fewer than two, rarely more than that also, but there was never a dog that was "mine". Never one that was my older brother's either. Did not matter that I petted them, took time to feed them, and played with them, they were not "mine". For whatever reason that I could not define, every dog we ever had growing up belonged to my younger brother. And this was their (the dogs') choice. Where ever my younger brother went, the dogs went with him. Not because he called them to, it was simply the way it was. For whatever reason, he was the one they were willing to lay down their lives to protect.

He was the one Charlie was bitten by the rattlesnake while protecting (imposing himself between my younger brother and the snake). Charlie did get the Vet in time to be saved.

He was the one that Sugar leaped from the canal bank to save from drowning. Sugar would have drowned with him as there was no way to get back on the bank, but she held him up until a boat could reach them.

He was the one they gathered around whenever strangers turned up (whether simply knocking at the door, or walking by on the street).

Whenever my younger brother went through the door to the outside world the whole time we were together (a period that ended when I began my service in the Army but covered virtually his entire life to that point) the dogs would immediately follow him. When he went to bed, they slept near him.

In my experience, my younger brother did not treat the dogs as well as I did. At best he gave them "tolerant neglect" in that he tolerated them being around him, but pretty much did not do anything for them.

For whatever reason, he had 100% of their affection and loyalty, and the rest of us (my parents, my brother, and myself) had to be content with just being accepted as "part of the pack".

My younger brother (he was 18 months younger than me) died about five years after I went away to the Army. The reasons for his death had everything to do with how he lived his life, and nothing to do with whether or not he was loved by dogs. I know in my heart that if were possible for any of the dogs that traveled through his life to lay down their own for his, they would have done so. Within the limited reasoning power that a dog's mind possesses, they would have counted themselves as lucky to be allowed such a boon.

I do not know, to this day, what power my younger brother had over dogs. I know that it was very, very real.