Where you – the reader – take over and I put my feet up. (Actually I’m headed to the gym.) Send anything about anything to peter.b.abrahams@gmail.com. I love this reminiscence from Maury M. Many thanks!

You Always Remember Your First

Duchess was my first dog. She was a mutt (we called her a Heinz-57 variety dog). She was the dog that I had while growing up in Albuquerque from about age 11 until I went away to college.

Duchess was definitely a sweet little girl, and the offspring of Cindy, my best friend Chris’s dog. Cindy managed to get around some and had a litter of two puppies – a male named Boots and a female named Duchess. Looking at them, you would never guess they were littermates – Boots was pitch black (except for his white feet, ergo the name Boots) and, as you see, Duchess was various shades of brown. Boots’ coloring was closer to Cindy, who also was a black haired dog, while Duchess must have had her father’s coloring. Boots was actually adopted by a neighbor (Tommy E.), but even though they lived only two doors apart, they did not see much of each other after adoption. Both were pretty much back yard dogs, which was a much more common phenomenon at that time. However, the summer before I departed for college, Duchess and I would go out for fairly long walks at night, when it would be cooler than during the day. She was very well behaved on leash and seemed to greatly enjoy the walks and the time we spent together doing that was very special indeed.

My mother was somewhat reluctant at first to have a dog in the house although Duchess won her over with her puppy charm. Part of her reluctance was probably due to the fact that she did not have a dog growing up, so Duchess was her first as well. I think my father may have had one growing up named Skipper, but details there are fairly sketchy. My grandfather lived with us through most of the time that I had Duchess, and he and Duchess were also best buds. At night, Duchess would alternate between my bed and my parents bed, moving back and forth as she desired. Duchess was definitely not fond of baths, although we were able to bathe her on rare occasion, with my dad primarily doing the honors.

After I left for college, I imagine it was fairly lonely for Duchess, living in the house with just my father who worked fairly long hours, although she was absolutely delighted when I came home for Christmas break. My mother had died before I left for college, and my father remarried shortly after I returned to school. Sadly, Duchess did not adjust well at all to the new household, and with great reluctance, my father had to give her up at that time.

In retrospect, my biggest regret was that, compared to my present state of knowledge about proper care of the members of the nation within, I was largely clueless as to proper dog care at the time, and there are many things that I wish I had done differently that may have given her an even better quality of life than she ultimately had. But she was certainly well loved and taken care of, and seemed to be very happy with her living arrangements and family, and hopefully she was never disappointed with the life she experienced being taken care of and living with me. And I confident that she has since been united with Wookie and Teddy (and Casey too) on the other side of the rainbow bridge, where they comfort and amuse one another and share sweet stories of their time on this side of the bridge.