Dogs in Our Lives

When our daughter, Jean, was about seven, she came home from school with a surprise. A dog followed along behind her. She brought him into the house. She said, "Can we keep him?" Please!

I said, "We'll see what Daddy has to say. First, we have to find if he belongs to someone else." I looked in our local paper and found no ad for a lost dog. When George came from work, Jean and I told him the story of how the dog had come to the school and to Jean. George agreed to have him join our family.

George said, "We have to give our new dog a name." Jean had a question for her father. She said, "Daddy, why doesn't he "woof?" Her father said, "Maybe he isn't a "Woofer." We decided then to name him "Woofer."

In those days, in our village, there was no leash law. Dogs were free to run at will. Every day, Woofer would go for a walk and then return home. One day, however, Woofer didn't come home. We looked for him everywhere. We found no"Woofer". He had disappeared.

The next day I thought to ask our letter carrier, "By any chance, have you seen Woofer?" The carrier said, "As a matter of fact, I have. He's living with a family over on another street." We knew of the family. We had heard that they were very nice people. That was fine, but we wanted our dog back!

When George came home from work, he, Jean, and I went in the car to claim our property.

On the porch of a home, we saw Woofer. He was lying beside a white dog and was sound asleep. When we came onto the porch, the dogs came to greet us. We rang the bell. A woman opened the door. We told her, " Woofer is our dog." Her husband came then to the door. They were surprised to learn that their "Brownie" was a lost dog. They thought he was a stray dog. ( I don't remember whether dogs were required to wear tags at that time. Maybe we hadn't yet bought a tag.) After we chatted for a short tme, we thanked the folks for taking care of Woofer. George put Woofer in the car and we went home.

We thought the matter was settled, but love pulled Woofer back to Queenie. Every day, for as long as he lived, Woofer went to be with Queenie. Every night, after supper, George drove the few blocks to bring him home. .

On occasion, we learned that Woofer and Queenie had gone to a meat market in town, where, at the back door, the butcher gave each dog, a bone. The two dogs, we learned, would take their bones back to Queenie's house to eat.

Queenie, in time, died of old age. Woofer, however, for the rest of his life,continued to go daily to Queenie's porch. George drove him home at night. Woofer lived to an old age and had been good company. It was remarkable, too, that from his arrival that first day, Woofer behaved as a gentleman to our cats.

At a much later time, we had a second dog come into our lives, a puppy. Jean named him, Sigfried Sigfried was a Golden Retriever. Jean, in her summer job as a census taker, saw Sigfried in a litter of puppies. She loved him at first sight. We agreed for him to join our family, so Jean bought him. Sigfried had a fascinating life, but in Sigfried's day, whenever he was out and about, he had to be on a leash. The freedom of dogs to run at will had ended.
Marylee Armour, August 18, 2007