A Dog Tale

Since Life's a Beach, I have to post a beach picture of the day!

Caribbean Queen, Isla Mujeres

If you want a little tale of "My Dog Freckles", kind of a demented 'kids and dogs gone wild' version of "My Dog Skip", continue on down the page.

My Dog Freckles

When my brother and I were little, our mother hated dogs. Despite our begging and pleading, she refused to let us have a dog. Part of it could have to do with the fact that my brother had tried to see if cats could fly by dropping a neighborhood Tom from the roof of our one-story ranch, but I think it had more to do with the loss of her dog Fritzie when she was a child. My grandfather, an avid gardener throughout his life, had a huge vegetable/flower garden that covered a large portion of his side and backyard. Tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, rhubarb, potatoes, carrots, lettuce, beets -- you name it! As was common back then, he used dangerous chemicals to get rid of critters, fungus, and anything that threatened the food supply. It was the Depression! Anyway, my grandfather always took precautions to keep Fritzie away from the garden after he sprayed, but somehow the dog got loose, into the garden, and died a painful death from the poison. So I think my mother probably never wanted to have a pet again and go through the terrible pain she felt as a child.

My Mom and Her Dog Fritzie

Anyway, I was pre-K and don't remember the exact circumstances, but one day my brother just came home with a puppy. A black/white/black-white spotted short-haired pooch. Somehow he was allowed to keep it. I'm guessing my dad gave permission over the protests of my mom. My brother and I quickly named the puppy Freckles. We won the battle, BUT -- my mom never allowed the dog into her heart. AND -- it was rarely allowed into her house.

In other words, Freckles was an outdoor dog. Long story short -- Freckles turned into kind of a slightly domesticated version of a mean junkyard dog. Freckles viewed his territory as blocks in every direction and fought to defend it. He became the scourge of the neighborhood. Freckles learned to drag home almost anything he could get his mouth around. Newspapers, milk deliveries, neighbor's shoes, or anything else that had been left outdoors. The doorbell would ring and an angry neighbor would be standing on the front porch with the latest complaint about Freckles. My mom often tried to return Freckles' stash if she could figure out who was missing items, but most mornings Freckles left a collection of flotsam out by the back doorstep. The back stoop became the neighborhood lost and found. Tired of apologizing, my mom would snap Freckles to a staked chain in the backyard again. But never for very long, because my brother or I would set him free.

The war intensified between Freckles and my mom. To her horror, when she hosted her weekly bridge club at the house, one woman finally managed to get to the door and report that Freckles had taken charge of valet parking and with growling and gnashing of teeth, was refusing to let the 'ladies of the club' out of their cars on the driveway.

My brother and I, having bonded with Freckles, loved to see him have fun and wreak havoc. Every few days, a short little man who limped along with a cane would make the trek up Fourth Street to the IGA (a block up the street from our house). Freckles, chained to the stake, would run back and forth at the end of the leash letting the poor man, across the street on the sidewalk, know that he was definitely violating Freckles' home territory. My brother, being half-devil and wanting to support Freckles in his mischief, would unsnap Freckles from his tether and yell, "Heeere comes FRECKLES!" The man would begin hobbling at a partial run as fast as he could flee down the sidewalk away from our house. Usually my brother would call Freckles back before he got at the man.

My Brother and I -- Partners in Crime

Anyway, I'm guessing some of you can predict how this story is going to end. Freckles continued his neighborhood reign until he one day met his match -- a kid named Tom. His family was kind of Oswego's version of the Bumpuses (from the Christmas Story). They lived in a ramshackle old two-story falling-down house in the wrong end of town (if there actually WAS a wrong end of town in Oswego). The father was a house painter with a sloppy reputation, too many kids to feed, and his house, of course, did not have a smudge of paint on it. I'm sure they may have been perfectly nice people, but Tom, a year older than me, was one mean-ass grade school dude. He passed our house one afternoon after school when my brother was playing football in the backyard and Freckles was chained to his tether. I'm sure taunts were exchanged between Tom and the kids, and Tom picked up a brick and threw it at Freckles. Tom made a serious error in not being out of Freckles' range on the chain, and Freckles managed to get in a bite. I'm not sure if Freckles broke skin or not, but the end result was a large adult kefuffle with Tom's father threatening to sue if the dog was not put to sleep. So Freckles' short life was ended at the vet's. I remember crying for days at the loss of our partner in crime, and to this day, my brother still likes to mention the fact that his dog was murdered when he wants to get a rise out of my mom.

As a responsible adult now with a dog that I dearly love and treat as my Princess (Saby the Wonder Dog), I still feel a lot of guilt over the fate of Freckles and our childhood part in the whole episode. Freckles was the perfect example of a dog gone bad because of the ignorance of its owners, but he was our Freckles, if only for a short time.

P.S. I've hunted high and low this morning through all the black and whites in the house and cannot find the one picture I had of Freckles. I think I gave the picture to my brother several years ago on his birthday as a memento of childhood. Now I'm going to have to sift through all the family pictures when I'm home next time to see if I can find another. But until then, a close facsimile will have to do.