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...