Mimi’s Corner: Accidental Dogs, Part One

What is an accidental dog? It’s one that you did not seek to feed, shelter, and eventually adopt but wound up doing so anyway. My family is either doomed or blessed to be afflicted with the “accidental dog syndrome,” which strikes without warning and seems to be incurable.

It started with my parents before I was born. My dad’s cousin had a dog who unexpectedly became a mother. My parents, as newlyweds, agreed to take one of the pups. This pup, whip smart according to my dad, was named Elmer, and he quickly learned tricks and to stay out of the kitchen! Unfortunately, Elmer developed distemper and soon died still a pup. (This was in 1943, before distemper shots were routinely given to dogs.)

My broken-hearted father declared, “No more dogs!”

A year or so later, my parents started feeding a stray who had been hanging around the neighborhood. The stray, a wise one obviously, recognized soft hearts and stuck around for a while: 13 years, to be precise.  This was Moocho Poocho, so named because of his mixed heritage, a black and white beagle/setter/hound. He was the big “brother” I never had, who guarded me in my baby carriage and put up with my childish ways. His death broke our hearts and my dad declared, “No more dogs!”  Hah!

Moocho was followed by Pooh Bear, a young blonde cocker spaniel who was given to us by friends who could no longer keep her. They asked my parents to babysit Pooh while they tried to find someone to adopt her permanently. So much for finding “someone else.”

Pooh was such a sweetie that they would have had to pry her from my mom and dad’s hands after only one week. Pooh was already house trained and a very good playmate for their two little granddaughters. She lived with them for about nine years. It broke Daddy’s heart when she died and he said, once again, “No more dogs!”

This edict stood for about three years until my sister in Chicago got an opportunity to spend a year studying in Sri Lanka. She obviously couldn’t take her big black collie retriever Zephyr with her, and my parents agreed to keep her on the condition that she take Zephyr back to Chicago when she returned.  Need I say more? By the time she returned, Zephyr was my parents’ dog, pure and simple. She knew when my dad was due home from work, served as his pal when he retired, and after my father’s death, was a constant comfort for my mom for many years. When Zephyr died, it broke her heart, and my mom said, “No more dogs!” But unlike my dad, she meant it.

So, no more dogs were adopted by anyone at 401 Golfview Avenue in Dayton. But the tradition carried on into the next generation, as you shall see next week—in Part Two of Accidental Dogs.