Some doggy memories

Do you remember the dogs of your childhood? I do—a wild and lovable female collie mix inappropriately named Timmy, an English cocker with a less-than-sweet disposition, a gentle and genteel collie called “Sister” for some reason.

A recent thread on Facebook is bringing back bittersweet memories of my years with Cairn terriers—and giving me new memories to savor. The oldest daughter of old friends posted a picture of the house her dad lived in as a child. The house later became the first osteopathic hospital in Fort Worth—the ground floor was the hospital, and a surgeon and his family lived on the second floor.

For the family who initially posted, the thread led to an online reunion with the descendants of the two Hispanic women who had cared for their father when he was a child and whom he loved very much. Talk about bittersweet memories.

But another part of the thread led to a discussion of the several buildings occupied by Fort Worth Osteopathic Hospital until its demise in 2004. By then I had worked at the hospital, been married to a surgeon, divorced, and moved on with my life. But the thread connected with a friend who also worked there and then morphed into a thread about Cairn terriers because Ellen, the woman, and I met when she bought a Cairn from me.

And then, as these things do, the thread twisted back to the original family of kids—because they too had one of my Cairns—named Jody, because it combined my name with that of my then-husband, Joel. And then the memories of Cairns came flooding back.

As I child I read the book Greyfriars Bobby, about the Edinburgh dog so attached to its master that he refused to leave his grave. Mistakenly all those years I thought Greyfriars Bobby was a Carin—he was a Skye terrier. But I determined to have a Cairn—and we ended up raising and showing them, not that we were ever great successes at either. But we had one champion, and I recall someone telling me outright that the judge was interested in the dog’s legs not mine. I remember Jemima and Bitsy and the cute male with the bent tail who died from chewing on a wicker basket (always a cautionary tale for me).

I guess I had forgotten though how I spread my Cairn joy, until the son of my friends posted, “You spread a lot of joy with your doggies.” Funny the way that networks form, and the way that memories come and go. For  Facebook doubters, this was an example of the good that network can do.