Rosie

My first dog was a bea­gle that I named Rosie. She was the best dog ever; even if she was­n’t trained all that well. She used to roam around down­town Con­nersville when we lived in town, and she got knocked up by some dead­beat dad of a ter­ri­er. So she was a rough kind of girl, but always loy­al to me.

She did­n’t have a tail for very long. She had to get it bobbed because it got mangy or some­thing. I was too young to remem­ber. This is kind of rough for a point­er-hound like a bea­gle. For the rest of her life, he lit­tle stub would try to stick in the air when she caught a nice rab­bit scent. When she first came into heat, she had to wear some of my old train­ing pants to keep from bleed­ing all over the house. I thought that was fun­ny, to see a dog walk­ing around in under­wear. Rosie was an expert at knock­ing over trash cans and root­ing through them. Many many times when we moved out to the coun­try, I had to pick up trash and put it back into the trash cans for every neigh­bor on Stony­brook Lane. Rosie would always fol­low me around when I would go explor­ing in the woods, or play­ing in the creek. At least, she would do so until she found a rab­bit scent, and then she’d be gone for hours. I would have to yell and yell for her to come home. As she grew old­er she would­n’t come home quite as eas­i­ly. She’d roll in after dark, hun­gry and reek­ing of what­ev­er dead ani­mal she’d rolled around in. One sum­mer it was real­ly hot and dry and Rosie got some sort of rash. My mom had her put down with­out telling me. I nev­er saw Rosie again. She was the best dog ever.