I’m going to share something from “The Paris Review,” it’s one of my yearly expenses and I’m reading of the works of many people past and present. What is the “Paris Review” you ask.

• The Paris Review, American literary quarterly founded in 1953 by Peter Matthiessen, Harold L. Humes, and George Plimpton, with Plimpton also serving as the first editor. It is an English-language review modeled on the independent literary magazines (also known as “ little magazines ”) published in Paris in the 1920s.

After reading this poem in the most recent review, I could not but look at my own pets down through the years, especially dogs.

My dogs started with a Mutt named Lady, I can not remember when she crossed the Rainbow Bridge. However I do know the loss of a pet can be an emotionally devastating experience.  I do know Lady was my pal early in life back in the 40’s. Somewhere around the age of 9 or 10 we adopted Scarlet & Amber, Dalmations from the same litter. They were inseparable and lasted at most, and I’m guessing, a month? They had to be returned as they were not good house pets I was told.

Next was Co Co, full name CoCO Mimi Celest by Hecht. I turned that girl into a hunting a dog, ten yards out, back and forth, Quail, Grouse, Pheasant or whatever, kick it to the air she would. She loved the hedgerows of Burlington County, NJ back in the late 50’s and early 60’s. Most of those hedge rows and birds no longer exist. The only downfall of this girl was, she hated getting her feet wet. Whenever we came to a stream, I’d cross, lay the Shotgun down and return for CoCo’s ride across the water.

In 1969 or 70 I brought home from work a medium sized scruffy wire haired dog named Ping. The name, she used to lay beneath the Ping Pong table at the firehouse I worked at. An old LaFrance (1947) 100 ft aerial ladder truck co. in Hartford, CT is what I rode. Back in the day I like to say.

The Mrs. wasn’t too keen on this pathetic looking creature and I remember her saying, “If he so much as nips once, any of the children, out he goes. The kids, a new born, one, 1 yo and another age 3. Never a nip, had that wonderful pet for a good ten years. Called her Ping the Wonder Dog back in the day.

A Yellow Lab with the name of Saucy would also join us those years in Connecticut. Once the fruit of the vine appeared, we continuously found Cucumbers on our lawn from neighbors gardens, the Lords bounty.

After my retirement from the CT State Police we moved to the Eastern Shore of Maryland, a sort of compromise between Maine, the Mrs. choice, and Florida, my choice. We wound up getting a Black Lab – Mix, and what we suspect was the father, a Collie named Chief. That Mutts name was Troop.

We would have a Marsh and a Duke along the way. Next to last we had a Maggi, a Standard Poodle and presently, another Standard Poodle, Benjamin.

Many of the atributes mentioned in the poem I am about to share existed in one or all of our past canines.

Without further ado, I share with you.