Inside Looking Out: Confessions of a dog owner

This country has gone crazy for canines.

From my childhood days when owning a dog was almost an afterthought to now when it’s common for pooches be to sleep in the same beds with their owners, these four-legged favorites are like adopted children to many.

But years ago, to flip the title of this column, most dogs were literally on the outside looking in.

As a kid I wanted a beagle so badly I traced his picture from an encyclopedia and taped him to my bedroom wall.

“Mom, can I get a dog?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You’ll never take care of it.”

Sometime later, my “beagle” arrived at our house from a guy down the street who was getting rid of his puppies. Skippy was a mixed breed of who knows what. Out came the newspapers I spread across our kitchen floor. Paper training soon failed me and my puppy. If he made it a game to pee and poop off the edges and in between the cracks the Daily News, he won every day.

At night, he cried nonstop.

“Go shut your dog up!” yelled my father.

I limped into the kitchen and my sleepy eyes would find newspapers torn to shreds, poop and pee all over the linoleum floor and Skippy’s water bowl turned upside down, leaving a puddle trail that had made its way onto the rug in front of the door.

Once Skippy was old enough, we did what most dog owners in the ’60s did. Into the backyard he went to be tied to a tree that was never to his liking. There were doghouses here and there, but I never saw anybody’s pet go in them.

All day long the neighborhood dogs would bark at everything and at nothing. Most families would bring their dogs into their houses at night. My Skippy would bolt down the cellar steps for his late-night repose and whimper until exhaustion knocked him into sleep.

One morning after an all-night heavy rain, I went down the stairs to take Skippy outside. When I got to the bottom step, I yelled, “Mom!”

The cellar floor was flooded with water. Skippy was sitting on his dog bed sailing around the furnace like Captain Ahab looking for Moby Dick. I had never seen him so calm. He was enjoying the ride. I put my boots on, grabbed a bucket and spent the entire day bailing out the basement. I left Skippy on the high seas until the water level got to be too low and his boat bed had beached itself.

Perhaps he was a reincarnation of one of the animals from Noah’s ark.

When it was time for Poop Patrol, I grabbed a shovel and a garbage bag. I’d always find Skippy had run around the oak tree in one direction until his rope was so tight, the poor animal’s head seemed cemented to the trunk. I never understood why he never could figure out that if he ran the other direction he’d unwind himself. Instead, he’d keep trying to go the same way with his head snapping back against the bark. This would be animal cruelty today, but back in the ’60s, this behavior never attracted anyone’s notice.

Done scooping up the poop field, I trudged back into the house,

“Stop right there and get those shoes off. Can’t you see the crap you left on the floor?”

Wipe the floor. Take the garden hose to my sneakers. I’ve stepped in my share of the stuff in my life and I’m still waiting for my good luck; and yes, I’ve been the target of a few overhead birds, too.

We lived in a not-yet emerging suburb of New Jersey. Ticks were common to our environment. Skippy would get these creatures in his ears every spring. One day, by the time I got to remove them, the ticks were engorged with blood. My friend David held him down while I poked the tweezers into his ears.

“Hurry up! I’m losing my grip!” yelled David. Removing ticks from Skippy was like trying to stick a needle into the ear of a Brahma bull while you wrestle it to the ground.

Suddenly, with one strong yank of his rope, Skippy broke free, and before we could stumble to our feet, he sprinted across the backyard into the woods. We ran after him, yelling his name. An hour or so later there was no sign of him anywhere.

My dog was gone forever. My father took me around in his car that night with no luck. Thinking back, Skippy probably yipped, “I’m free at last!” in dog language, and I wouldn’t have blamed him.

I admit I was a terrible dog owner back then. Now I look down at my Lilly the Lab who just got up from her third nap of the afternoon and I have this weird thought. When I look into her eyes I feel guilty about Skippy.

Quickly, this thought leaves. I have to grab my shovel for Poop Patrol. Some things about dogs never change.

Rich Strack can be reached at katehep11@gmail.com.