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| Cindy is the center of attention (July 1957) |
Last week I posted a photo of our second family dog, Missy. Today I dug into the archives to try to come up with an equally good photo of our first family dog, Cindy -- but I was unable to do so and therefore reprise a photo posted here at The Prism in November 2013. This photograph from 1957 is apparently not only the earliest photograph of our first family dog, Cindy -- it might be the only one I have. For as long as Cindy was with us, we must have other photos of her so this will become another project for 2014.
This photograph is obviously in bad shape, but it was taken in July 1957 when we were living in Holyoke, Massachusetts. My sister and I are in the center of the picture. The two older girls are neighbors whose names have been lost in time.
Cindy was a great dog and as gentle as could be. We got her for Christmas one year and she was still a very young puppy. She was part of a litter from a dog owned by a colleague of my father's at Sears in Holyoke. The owners of Cindy's mother were leaving town on a trip for the holidays and so Cindy was delivered a week or so earlier than we probably should have gotten her. She lived with us her entire life from the time she was weaned if not slightly earlier. Our family was all she ever knew.
Cindy went almost everywhere with us and hated to be left out of anything. If she had to be left behind for some reason (even if for the shortest period of time), we had a strict rule that when we arrived home the door would be opened so Cindy could come outside to greet us and absolutely before any family member went into the house; otherwise Cindy was so excited to see us that she wiggled all around us with her tail going like a fan . . . and in the process she invariably lost some bladder control so that our feet and shins and the immediate area got "baptized" in excited greetings.
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Photograph from the collection of the author.
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Copyright 2014, John D. Tew
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Cute photo! I remember our first dogs. The family dog was named Chu Chu. I think that's a Brazilian name (my mom is from Brazil). It's pronounced Shoo-Shoo. He was a medium-sized mut with facial markings of a doberman pincer. My own dog when I was a girl was a little terrier. We also had a black cat named Mrs McGillicutty. We called her "Mrs. M" for short.
ReplyDeleteThank you for another nice dog story! I think this will be my way to put my toes into the water (writing about family, that is) by starting with my pet stories. Also loved your cat on top of your son in another recent post! A honey colored cat was my first "American" pet when I arrived in the USA over 30 years ago and we called him Honey. Honey thought he was a dog and even went on a leash. We travelled with him from Arizona all the way to Anchorage, including on the ferry. On our way back to the lower 48's, we camped through Canada starting in the Yukon and then on to Kansas, for our next duty station and Honey came along again, this time with a Malamute "sister". This duo made numerous friends in all the camp grounds along the way.... I guess it is easier than I thought. Thanks, You have definitely inspired me to try!
ReplyDeleteAnnick