Jaeger

 Meet Jaeger, the seven-week-old border-collie puppy we're adopting.

If you read the previous post, you know that my longtime pal, Harold, passed away recently. I had good intentions of waiting until after Christmas to adopt another dog.   But I made a bad mistake---I looked online at dogs available for adoption.  The first couple of stabs at adoption ended in disappointment, but one last look yielded a new posting---border collie puppies.  I've owned both a pureblood border collie and a border-collie mix previously.  Wonderful dogs, though if you don't exercise them, they will eat your house.  I'm willing to work with Jaeger.

Having a dog and walking it each morning has been part of my routine for years, and it has definitely helped my physical and mental health.  Those dogs have lived with me, been part of my family, and helped raise my daughters.  But I didn't always see dogs that way.

I grew up in the country at a time when dogs were not house pets. All through the surrounding South, you could see dogs hooked on chains, tied to trees and posts in the yard. Somehow Dixie, our bitch, still decided to have pups. We kept two from the litter, Beauregard and Ulysses, the latter named by a friend who didn’t know better.  I remember letting the dogs off their chains to run free, roaming the hollers and streams. I also remember coming home and Dad saying Ulysses had been run over. 

Beauregard was a coon dog—black, brown, bits of white. He was powerful, with a deep voice that carried for miles. He was bred for chasing a raccoon in the dark for miles, treeing it, then baying for someone to come shoot it.

What I don’t like to remember is the years after I left home—Mom and Beauregard alone in the country, Beauregard always hooked to his chain, day after day, seldom making a sound.

I can't undo my treatment of Beauregard.  I can only plead youth and ignorance. But I've learned to do better, and making a dog a part of my life has radically enriched it.  Life is so much better with a dog around.