The Very Best Dog

We have a new Grand dog in our family.  Our daughter and son-in-law recently adopted a rescue dog.
She is a beautiful German Pointer named Lacey.  Her family thinks that she is the prettiest and best-behaved dog there ever was.  We have dog sat with Lacey and she is, indeed, a very special dog.

This last week I have been going through all our photos and organizing them into files.  I put all our photos of the dog you see above into our "Pets" file.  The pet you see in the above picture is the late and great pet named Scotty, who was undoubtedly the greatest dog in the world!  Lacey is very, very nice, but Scotty was the greatest.

He came to us as a puppy.  Don was then athletic director at Highland High School.  It was early spring and he was mowing the football field on a Saturday morning.  He later called home and said to me, "You'll never guess what is sitting under my desk and looking at me with these big brown eyes."  Thankfully, it being Saturday, I could rule out it being any sane human being.  Anyone sane wouldn't hang around school on a Saturday.  "Yes," he explained, "it is the cutest puppy I have ever seen.  I think I'll bring him home if it is all right.  He was either dropped off out here by someone, or has run away.  It isn't safe to leave him here.  He'll be  running out into the road."

I was not happy.  We had just recovered from our last puppy experiences.  We had just lost our not very bright bassett hound named Humphrey.  True, he was cute in a very wrinkly sort of way, but he wasn't very bright........in any kind of way;  He was a behavior-training drop-out.  He had suffered from a hip joint displacement, because he jumped out of the car (it was parked) with his leash on.  Then he sat down in front of a school bus.  We spent several hundred dollars nursing him through those injuries.  And, soon after he was recovered, he ran in front of a jeep and was killed. We had also suffered through de-fleaing and de-worming dear old Humprhey.  I wasn't ready for another dog!

I told Don he could bring the pup home until we found an owner for him, but we weren't going to have another dog.  The rest of the family did not like my refusal.  But I stood firm in my decision.  One of the coaches at Highland said he would like to have the puppy.  So, fine.  But part of our family (the kids) weren't being too friendly toward Mother.

About a month later, the coaches from Highland were making a weekend trip to some sporting event.  They asked if I would mind dog sitting the puppy while they were gone.  Well......... you can guess the rest.  One weekend with that sweet pup and I was a goner.  AND upon returning home from their trip, the coach said his apartment owners didn't want him to have a dog in his apartment. The rest is history.

We named our new pup Scotty, not because any part of him is Scotty dog breed, but after the school's mascot, the Highland Scots.  He seemed to know from the very first that he had to be a very good and friendly dog.  After all, Mom said she didn't want a puppy.  But Scotty proved from the very first that he was indeed a very good dog. He didn't bark much, he never had "accidents" in the house.  He just smiled at you, and liked you a lot.

If you look at the picture way at the top of this page, this shows Scot's reaction to anyone who asked him, ""Do you want to walk around the block?"  Immediately he head tilted and the ears were cocked.  Of course, you could get the same reaction if you said, "Do you want to rock around the clock?", or "Do you want to chalk around the stock?"  But he did love to take his walks.  I often took him on the nearly three mile path around Aqua Gardens along wth my neighbor, Evelyn.  He was still such a puppy on our first time around Aqua Gardens that his little paws hurt and he was so tired about half way round, I had to carry him the rest of the way.  Evelyn thought this very funny.  She laughed all the way home.

He also loved to go back to the football field.  There were farm fields all around the stadium.  After taking a few turns on the track, he would take off through the fields, leaping like a deer over any plant in his way.  Some times he got so carried away with this freedom that we had to wait a long time for him to return.  After one really long wait, we bought a cap pistol.  One shot with the caps, and he always flew back to the car.

Scotty loved everyone, especially all the kids who came to play in our yard.  He also liked all the neighborhood dogs.  He would happily run across the street, and wait in the driveway for the neighbor's dog to come out and play.  Cheryl's best friend, Cindy, had a dog named Scout.  Scout had a built-in clock and he knew exactly when it was time for the school bus to get home in the afternoon.  Scout would pick up

Scotty, and the two of them would go down to the bus stop to meet "their" kids.

As much as he loved walks, Scotty also loved to ride in the car.  And, just like his family, he believed that every car ride should include a stop for an ice cream.  One drive up ice cream store in Anderson had a "Scotty dish" on their menu.  He would quickly finish his dish in the back seat, then lean over the back of our seat and watch us eat our cones.  If you got too close to the end, he would tap you on the shoulder so you wouldn't forget to feed him the end of your cone.

He also loved to go to the lake with us.  He would sleep for most of the two-hour drive to the lake.  But he would always wake up about fifteen minutes before arriving at the lake.  Then he would hang his head over the front seat and get all excited watching for the lake.  He loved to get in the lake, ride on the pontoon, and  to roll in dead fish so that he smelled really bad!  He had his very own seat on the pontoon, in the back right beside Don.  If we had friends on the pontoon, and one of them sat in "His seat", Scotty would simply stand and stare at them until they found a new place to sit!

Scotty loved everyone, except maybe delivery men in uniform (what's up with that - it seems all dogs feel that way).  But Scotty especially loved his family.  Of course there was a very special bond between Scotty and Don because he accompanied Don on almost every trip in the car and on every walk.  And even after all the kids were grown and moved to their own homes, he loved to have them come visit.  Rod was always a favorite because he knew just the right spot to scratch Scotty's ears!

About a year after I retired, when Scotty was getting old and grey around the edges, he took sick one night while we were sleeping.  Don found him very ill and unable to stand one morning.  He immediately rushed him to our vet.  The doctor said that he didn't have long to live, so we had him put to sleep so that he wouldn't suffer.  Boy, what a void it leaves in  your lives when such a constant companion is gone. But I know that he must surely be in heaven where he is The Very Best Dog in Heaven, just like he was always the Very Best Dog on Earth!.

My love and thanks to son, Rod for the tutorial on photo scanning!  I love it.