Happy National Dog Day!

I can just get it in under the wire.  One of my first memories is riding in the car with what I perceived to be at the time, a giant St. Bernard, but her name was Maude and she was only a puppy. I remember  my mom and dad and I meeting someone late in the day, and having her in the car with us as we went through the Dairy Queen drive through or some fast food joint. Back then we only had three, so I feel certain it was a Dairy Queen. As a child of the 70's , I have a few other choice memories that linger like a frozen screen frame, but lots of the good ones contain dogs. 

I remember Maude knocking my four year old self down in the Texas snow and not being able to get back up, and feeling certain my life was over.

I remember my giant Great Dane Beau not letting my cousin out of the VW bug they pulled up to the house in, and watching from the window as Beau towered over the top of the car.

I remember Boo Boo and Melvin two almost identical little wienie dog mixes we found so many years apart and Eleanor and her babies Dumplin and Rita the dog I got in my idiot after college years when I didn't know what it meant to take care of a dog, loved by my mom  while I ran off and pretended to learn something about life the hard way. 

I remember my Lily's toy poodles with the French names, and my Nana's sweet mutt's waiting at the back door for leftover chicken and dumplins. 

I will never forget finding JoJo in New York like a scene from a movie, every other dog was howling and she was sitting beautifully still with a giant smile on her face, teeth and all, saying "Pick me! Pick me!" of course we did. 

I remember Operation Kindness in Carrollton and walking in to the cutest Schnauzer who's hair had just been cut five minutes earlier and everyone wanted him, but he was already mine. His name was Willie Pearl and he was not a little girl. Just one of the many songs written for him in all of his fourteen years.

I remember Daisy riding home from Dallas to Fort Worth with me in our Camry, it was new and so was she, we still have them both. Her popping out of the car a giant yellow lab with a pin head, and Shawn saying "I thought you were getting a puppy". 

Driving to get Carlos who at the time had no name, from a lady who called him baby. He was afraid of water and so chubby,  we taught him to hit a jingle bell to go outside until it got too annoying, and four years later we're not even sure he's a dog.  He's a critter for sure though.

 Standing in the rain under an umbrella with Grace and Amy, looking at the ugliness of humanity our third dog chose us,  a black and white pitbull, with every stigma against her became the happiest dog God ever placed into being. 

And sure they gurch in the middle of the night, they bark their heads off when you accidentally knock your hand against the wall, they're under your feet, and up in your grill with their fourteen year old breath.... BUT

They keep us safe,  they make us laugh, they help us get over ourselves in the best way, and they remember us like we remember them.... forever. I wasn't able to get my pics of the others out of the archive but here are a few of the usual suspects in the last few years.. I think you know them well.