History of Dogs: Smokey and Folgers

It was 1981.  Smokey was a shelty/miniature collie mix.  I remember him coming home as a puppy, and as I recall, he was probably way too young to be separated from his mom.  He was white and black.

Smokey came from a friend whose dog had puppies.  Like cuddles, and all of our dogs as a kid, Smokey was an outside dog.  I remember running home from school to play with Smokey.

In 1982 my family moved to Sheboygan and Smokey came with us. It was the summer between kindergarten and first grade.  While we were in Sheboygan, we got a second dog, an Irish Wolfhound...yes, a Wolfhound.  He was a puppy and we got him from a neighbor.  I'm sure he was a mixed breed, but as a first grader, I simply can't remember.

I remember getting him in Spring and sitting on the steps on the back of the two story duplex we owned with my dad trying to pick a name.  Smokey was by us and was getting to know the new puppy.

After thinking and thinking, I was silent, unable to come up with a name.  The puppy was a dark brown, almost black color.  Sitting on the steps, the rain gutter was dripping beside me and there was a coffee can on the concrete catching the drips.  It was a metal Folgers can.  I said "Folgers", and so it was.  I can still remember that morning so clearly.  It's amazing that some moments are seared into memory so deeply you can remember them decades later, yet I don't remember what I had for lunch today.

So Folgers and Smokey were our dogs.  Backyard, sort of junkyard dogs.  It's not what I would want for any dog, but it was what we had.

Our stay in Sheboygan was short lived.  After moving there in the summer of 1981 we were moving back over the summer of 1983.  I moved up to stay with family over The summer of 1983 as my parents moved.

When my parents returned, Smokey came along, but Folgers was gone.  I was told that he got loose in a thunderstorm and ran away.  I don't know if that is what really happened, but we were a one dog family again.  I wonder what happened to Folgers.  I hope he found a good home.

Smokey needed a new place to live and I spent time with my aunt Cleo building a dog house in her garage.  It was crude, made with 2x2s and wrapped with some aluminum siding, but it was a home for smokey.

I don't recall what happened to smokey.  It seems odd that I can't remember, but I do know that it was shortly after moving back that we were dogless.  In the spring of 1984 we got a new dog, Lady.  Lady was the sister or Smokey, having come from the same friend.

Lady would be a long term dog for us, and the dog I remember most from my early childhood.  More on that to come...

Bonus vacation

With temperatures well below zero, the kids are very excited to have an extra day off tomorrow.

Remember that pets need to be warm too.  All pets should be inside, in my opinion, but if yours is not, do everything you can to keep them warm.  Fresh water, heat lights, wind breaks, etc...

Of course, you could just bring them inside too.  Rogue and Ike seems to like being inside...

 

History of Dogs: Cuddles

While answering questions for an upcoming article, I was asked how Rogue has changed our lives.  That got me thinking...a lot...and feeling a bit philosophical.  Like most things that get me thinking like this, the answer has to start out a long time before Rogue entered the picture and the answer is fairly long.

As for me, well, I've always had a dog.  There are very few times in my life that I have not had a dog.  They really all serve as timeline markers in my life.  For some people it is cars that help them determine when a particular photo was taken (hey, that's grandmas old Lincoln, it must be about 1975).  For me, it was and is dogs.

Now the first thing you should know is that as a kid, we only had "outside dogs".  I'm generally against the idea of "outside dogs" in the same manner I am against "outside kids", it's cruel.  They are meant to be part of the family and live with you, if they don't, you are really missing the whole point of having a dog!

The next few blog posts will be dedicated to my past dogs.  Unfortunately, I have very few pictures, but will do some digging to see what I can find.

Dog #1 - Cuddles (~1977-1979) Age Unknown

Cuddles was a beagle-ish dog.  I don't remember when we got her, probably around 1977 or 1978, but she is the first dog I remember owning. She was an outside dog, and like many outside dogs, the cold winter would be her end.  I don't know for certain when she died, but this was pre-kindergarten for me.  Probably around 1979.

I have faint memories about Cuddles.  I remember we lived just west of Marshfield on Wren Road, the house is till there today.  We had a very old garage that looked like it was about ready to fall down (and I believe it is still there today too).  Behind that garage was Cuddles dog house.

In all honesty, it was a pretty good place for a dog house.  It was sheltered from the North and West by the garage and it had a big lilac bush that provided shade in the summer.  It was probably 50 feet from the back door and I remember going out in the morning to give Cuddles fresh water and the table scraps from the night before.

Behind our house was a barn, with cows that grazed right up to our backyard.  In the summer, we would play with cuddles on a long lead that was attached to her dog house.  It was just long enough that she could get under the fence and "attack" the cows.  I remember watching her laying perfect still until a cow got close. Then she would jump up and try to attack.  I don't think the cows ever really cared.

It would be that lilac bush that provided summer-time shade that would bring an end to Cuddles.  I get very sad when I see outside dogs that have a half circle of grass-less dirt around them that shows the extent of their world.  As Cuddles passed back and forth, the grass wore away and roots from that Lilac began to show.  One cold winter night, her chain got caught on a root, and that was the last night we had Cuddles.

This was my first experience dealing with death as a child and I honestly remember very little.  I do remember burring her right behind the garage (in the snow) where she lived most of her life and crying for a long time.  I know that sometime in the spring my dad buried her properly, but I wasn't part of that.

We didn't wait long before we got a new dog, it was probably mid spring.  I'll write about Smokey in my next post.