Before I had even arrived home with him I named him Snicker because he was chocolate and had two little n—, or so I thought. Upon careful inspection I noticed that Snicker was smooth as a silk pillow in the area where there should have been some appendages. I took him to the vet (not the horse vet) and inquired innocently, “Will they ever drop?” The vet looked at me in obvious disbelief and answered, “Do little boy’s drop?” “Well, no,” I stammered, embarrassed. “Then neither do little boy dog’s.”

I took Snicker and never went back. I was beginning to run out of veterinarians.

Let me just say, however, that this did NOT in any way ever deter Snicker’s sex drive. On the contrary, I think it revved it up because he was interested in making love with anything, even inanimate objects like table legs, my leg… You get the picture. By this time, Snicker had also turned the most beautiful shade of apricot, and I seriously thought of changing his name to Milky Way, but that would have really confused him because Snicker might have been cute, but his brains may have been located in those two little sacks somewhere inside. Let’s just say, he wasn’t the smartest dog I ever owned, but I loved him and so did Murray and Bocca.

See, Snicker was a shared dog. It didn’t start out that way, but it happened, and we were all the better for it. Murray and Bocca were my parents’ age and had never had children. They were new to the neighborhood, and I met them through the mutual builder. I liked them instantly and a wonderful friendship developed.

They had recently lost their Pomeranian that had been with them for 15 years (they had an oil, lighted portrait of her in their den). They refused to get another dog because it “hurt too bad to lose one,” but when they saw Snicker they fell in love, and Murray said, bring him over for a few days and I’ll house break him.” And that is when it started. For the next 16 years, I dropped off Snicker every morning and picked him up every afternoon.

Every vacation I took and many nights when I knew I had a late board meeting or school activity Murray kept Snicker. Snicker was my dog, but he was theirs, too. He rode in Murray’s truck to town every day, and got presents like a kid. He loved me, but he loved them too.

When I got the dreaded call while I was on summer vacation, Murray said, “Snicker’s not going to make it much longer, but you’ll have to be the one to have him put to sleep. He’s not in pain, so I’ll wait til you get here. He’s your dog.” But he really wasn’t. He was shared.

I took him to the vet for the last time, but Murray and Bocca bought his plot at the pet cemetery next to their Pomeranian. And when I went to their house and they weren’t home, I knew where I could find them.

The name, you’ll be glad to know, was an accident; however, it was certainly less than creative. One of my mother’s students, from a rather wealthy family, offered her a Collie puppy from the Lassie line or so they claimed. Their last name was Thrash, and I insisted that we name her in their honor. Since I couldn’t say my “h” plainly, she instead because Trash. Mother wanted to name her Goldie—now how silly would that have been?

Trash was my dog. She followed me everywhere. When I started school, she waited patiently on the hill where our house was everyday without fail. She ran beside my bike and she went where I went. We were inseparable, and I loved her dearly; she loved me without reservations. When she died at seven and a half from a heart attack, I was 12, and a part of me and childhood died with her. To this day I will never love another dog like I did Trash. Because everyone in town knew her, the local newspaper editor ran an obituary about Trash and her relentless love for a little girl. Her living and dying, I truly think, was a shared event.

The next dogs just never measured up, but it wasn’t their fault. I thought I wanted each one, but I couldn’t muster the love I needed to give them. Each one offered me something I didn’t fully return. They became my mother’s dogs because she fed them, loved them and tried to fill in for me. All were long ago carefully and lovingly buried by my dad who marked each grave with a small hand-made wooden cross and their tags by the tree-lined fence at the back of our huge yard. You could do those things back then in a little town.

My first year of teaching brought a little gray poodle, a gift from a friend. He was named Napoleon, and I just don’t do dogs with long names. So, a group of teachers got together for the sole purpose of re-naming this puppy. I wanted something more masculine than he was, so in deference to his French heritage and to give up a boost of testosterone, if by name only, we named him Jacque e Strape, or Jock as he became affectionately known.

He was cute and fun, and lived to be 12, but even then his life was cut short by a useless and stupid event. I took him to have his teeth cleaned, a yearly routine I had started when he was about 9 and began killing me with dog breath. Right before I went to pick him up at the animal hospital, I received a call that he had died in surgery. What had really happened we all surmised was that he was given too much anesthesia for his size. I learned the hard way, as I often do, but I know now to never take a poodle to a vet who specializes in horses!

And then there was Snicker—my second best dog ever! (to be continued)