Monday for Mari

Look at those sweet puppy-dog eyes. Circa 1988.

Shortly after my father died, I moved back home with my mother to an old farmhouse in the Virginia countryside. A friend of Mum’s had a dog she needed to find a home for. Enter Dinky, a Springer spaniel with long soft ears and sad, puppy eyes. She changed his name to Brinkley. “I’m not calling a dog Dinky! It’s undignified,” exclaimed my very-proper-English mother. Growing up, “dinky” was a euphemism for a male body part. So Brinkley became a part of the household and quickly earned the name Stinkley. It didn’t matter what his name was, he didn’t come when we called him. He was a sweet dog, except that the smells coming from his nether regions could peel paint. I have one particular image of my sister and I sitting on the sofa, listening to George Winston’s The Greatest Love, having a sort of meditation together. And then Stinkley padded in and sat at our feet. As I’m thinking, He really is a sweet dog, he let one rip; a silent stink bomb that made our eyes water and left us gasping for air. He made his escape one day and trotted down the road where he was picked up by a woman. Her kids fell in love with him. “He’s yours,” I said. “Really? Are you sure?” Oh, yes. I think he came to our home so he could go to his forever home. No one in the family was too upset when he left.

~Excerpted from Healing Dogs with Love