ROSCOE

My trip to Dogs for the Deaf's training facility (see post below) and an email from my daughter got me to thinking about our dog Roscoe who has been gone for over two years. Roscoe was a "wash out" from Dogs for the Deaf. He was a Wired Haired Fox Terrier. We called him our "Wild Haired" Fox Terrier. We brought him home over 15 years ago, from Dogs for the Deaf, and he was the family dog during the years our children grew up. We always called him our "special needs" dog because he had special needs. He loved to run free every time a door was left open. We once took him to Coos Bay during a visit to my parents home. My dad left a door open and he was gone. I remember the entire family chasing him around the streets of downtown Coos Bay. Needles to say that was the end of his trips out of town. He had a great fenced back yard and a "doggie door" so he had the freedom of our house. He love to go for walks on a leash but he was afraid of strangers. He love barking at the paper boy. He also hated cats. During the last few years of his life we had a cat adopt us. Roscoe lived on the top two floors of our house and the cat lived in the basement with access to our garage and outside. The door down to the basement had to be closed at all times. Once it wasn't, and we had to rescue the cat from the jaws of Roscoe. As much as he hated cats he was a very loving dog with our family. When I went shopping for a sofa for my Big Screen TV room the sales man asked what kind of a sofa I wanted and I said one my dog and I can watch football on. Fortunately both of my children were away at college when Roscoe left us. The other day I was looking through a drawer and found a family picture of the five ( counting Roscoe) of us from when the kids were in in grade school. It was one of those photos people take for their Christmas letter. In the front row sat Roscoe with a red bow around his neck against his white hair perfectly posing for the camera with the rest of us. That picture stays in my mind.There is an essay written by Ben Hur Lampman (who lived in Rogue River down our way for a time) from the Portland Oregonian, dated Sept. 11, 1925, that expresses my feeling for Roscoe. It is titled "The Best Place to Bury a Dog" It goes as follows: "There is one best place to bury a dog. If you bury him in this spot, he will come to you when you call-come to you over the grim, dim frontier of death, and down the well-remembered path, and to your side again. .....People may scoff at you , who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall, who hear no whimper, people who may never really have had a dog. Smile at them, for you shall know something that is hidden from them and which is well worth the knowing. The one best place to bury a good dog is in the heart of his master." We all still miss him!