Our family has owned a few different dogs over the years. After growing up and leaving the farm to live in the suburbs, we have had some very nice dogs. The first one was a collie, and the last two have both been golden retrievers. They have all been very loving animals and very nice companions for our family.
My Dog
Only the last one named Shadow did I ever consider really being “my dog.” I thought that it was because he spent so much of his time as a puppy with me.
Growing Up On A Dairy Farm
When I was growing up on a dairy farm, pets were a different matter. They had work to do just as we did. The first dog that I even remember was a little black puppy with white tipped paws that my mother named “Tippy.” Tippy didn’t live long because he was run over accidentally by my grandfather who felt so bad about the accident that he gave us his own dog. His dog was a German Shepard named “Nip” and you can guess as to why he was given that name!
However, Nip was a one man dog as are most German Shepards, and he never accepted anybody in our family to be the special one other than my Grandfather. Because my grandfather worked with us on our family farms, he came to our home on most week days from spring through the fall. So, Nip was delighted at his arrival. But when my father would go work at my grandfathers farm, and return home late in the day to do the milking, Nip would smell the running boards of the truck for my grandfathers scent.
Never Tease A Dog
I learned early in life not to tease a dog. One day Nip had caught a pheasant and was standing at the lane entrance from the barnyard. I was across the barnyard from him in the gateway between the horse barn and the milk house. I thought that I would make fun of him like a silly kid. I put my thumbs in my ears and waved my fingers at him saying Na! Na! Na! Na! Na! That was the wrong thing to do, because Nip put his pheasant down and ran across the barn yard and bit me in the face! I never teased him again, but years later, when he was dying, I went into the hay mow where he was and with tears in my eyes, I talked to him.
My father was never one to let an animal suffer, and I remember the next day playing in the farm house while knowing that my father had taken his shotgun out to shoot Nip outside. I put my hands over my ears as I tried to accept something that I didn’t understand. Later, that night I rode with my father on our little Ferguson tractor, and we took Nip in the front end loader down the lane and back to the woods to bury him. On a farm, you learn the realities of life very young.
Our Next Dog
Sport The Farm Dog
Our next dog was a little black puppy that my father named “Sport.” I still remember Sport as a black furry ball trying to navigate the deep snow as he followed me from barn to barn doing my chores that January. Later, that summer, Sport was killed in the road by a large truck. Then a white and black collie named Shep came to live with us as a puppy. Sheppy really became my baby sister’s dog. Shep also had a pension to wander to other farms & one of our neighbors had sheep and he shot any dog that came onto his property.
One time Shep was missing for several days, and my little sister felt for certain that he was dead. Shep had been hurt badly somehow, and had made his way home where my sister found him about halfway from the back of our farm trying to drag himself home. She went back to the house and got her radio flyer red wagon and took it back to where Shep was and very gently lifted him into the wagon and pulled him up the lane to the house where she took care of him. Since, I had left home by then, I didn’t know just what happened to Shep after that.
Shep and my baby sister Ruth
Be Sure To Photograph Your Pets
The moral of the story is this: Be sure to photograph your pets (all of them) with members of your family. For all of the love & devotion that they give you, you certainly owe them this remembrance.
Betty Muscott, Child Photographer
About Betty Muscott
Betty A. Muscott is an experienced child photographer and online entrepreneur for tools to capture great photographs of children by parents and grandparents. Connect with Betty on Google+
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