Man's Best Friend

In the Peanut's classic Christmas cartoon movie, Charlie Brown reacts to one of Snoopy's antics by saying, "man's best friend". However, he does this in a rather sarcastic tone, as Snoopy was not dutifully "pawing" all over his master with love and affection. Unlike Charlie Brown, many of us have had pooches who were, quite literally, part of the family. In fact, some pets are treated quite royally, compared to their biped counterparts. As you can guess, I have several stories about some "furry" best friends that I need to share.

We had at least 2 when we were growing up, Dusty and Shep. Dusty was a busy brown and black puppy who was quite energetic. He met with an early demise, however, as he contracted distemper, something that today may have been avoided because of an available vaccine. Several years elapsed before Shep came along. My parents had a family acquaintance who had a litter of collie puppies, and they offered one of them to us. Shep was adopted into the family, and became a regular at the dinner table, as well as in front of the TV with the gang. Of course, there were the usual encounters with skunks or other socially unacceptable "characters", but we dealt with those issues on an as needed basis.

My brother's family recently celebrated the arrival of their newest family member, Buck. He's a cute little guy who hails from the Midwest, generally considered a source of good "stock", just ask Mom. Time will tell what his contribution will be, but if he behaves like his predecessors, Hank and Rascal, the family will be delighted with the addition.

Yes, there were others too, Lucy and Libby, Waldo of Essex and his brother, Buddy, Hazard pay and Ruby, and not to be overlooked, even though they were cats, George and Kippy, and Pete the rabbit that round out the list of family, housebroken quadrupeds. The love and attention that these "beasts" receive is not unlike that of our more verbal family members and on occasion, even more. However, where would we be without some of these best friends? It's hard to say, but for the most part, this special group of best friends give us "paws", but certainly not for concern!