Lou’s View

By Lou Bernard

I love dogs. Ever since I was a kid, I’ve loved dogs. It’s something I have in common with Henry Shoemaker, who was also a dog lover—At times, he wrote obituaries for his dogs, and I’ve tried to do that same thing.

But this column isn’t about Shoemaker. It’s about dogs. I’ve written about quite a few—Hambone, the dog who saved my life as a child. Sam and Kat, the dogs my wife and I had when we were first married. Duke, the dog who saved my son’s life when he was a baby. Gwen, our little pug. And Mickey and Kasper, the Schnauzers we adopted.

I’ve written about them all, at times, and tried to give each one a little write-up when they passed away. Looking over my past columns, you might get the idea that I only write about dead dogs, and it’s time for me to change that.

Currently, we have two young dogs: Rosie and Butters.

Rosie is a Lab, mixed with who knows what else. Butters is a mini-goldendoodle puppy. Rosie is three, and Butters is one. And February 20th is Rosie’s Gotcha Day.

(For the record, the writing of this column has been interrupted twice so far by the two of them demanding to go out.)

Rosie is our COVID puppy. My son Paul was five when COVID began, and it took a whole year, but it started to affect his emotional state. At the time, we had Duke and Gwen, the senior pugs, but Paul wanted a little puppy to sleep with. So we went to a local farm and got Rosie on February 20, 2021.

There were maybe, oh, six hundred puppies in a cage. The first one to lick Paul was the one he wanted. He immediately said,”I want that one! She licked my finger!”

Rosie is a sweet, loving dog. To her family. Everyone else can go straight to hell. Like most COVID puppies, she didn’t get all that well socialized, so she adores her family, loves other dogs, and really enjoys being around children. If you’re an adult without kids or dogs, she’s somewhat suspicious of you.

Rosie loved Duke and Gwen, and they tolerated her. Gwen died in April of that same year, at age fourteen, and Duke managed to live to seventeen before he died. This left Rosie by herself, and we said we’d get her a friend when we met the right dog. That happened in September of 2022, when we got Butters.

A friend of mine had mini-goldendoodle puppies for sale. She posted a photo on Facebook, and that was all it really took to persuade my wife. So we drove out to Tamaqua, and Paul fell in love with the first mini-goldendoodle puppy he spotted. (We have also acquired Emily, a Syrian teddy bear hamster. But that’s another column.)

This was the easiest time we ever had introducing a new puppy into the household. Rosie and Butters took one look at each other, and decided that they were friends. Now they play together all day, and they both sleep with Paul at night. He claims to find this annoying, but when I offer to let them sleep in my room, he always turns me down.

Both Rosie and Butters love all the neighborhood kids, and when Paul is out in the yard playing with them, they’ll both cry at the door until I let them go and get some attention. I like having Rosie and Butters around. And given all the times I’ve written about one of our dogs after they’ve died, I really wanted to give some attention to the living ones for a change.