WEST LEBANON — I stopped by a friend’s woodworking shop the other day and his dog came out to greet me, holding a roll of tape in his mouth.
My buddy was on the phone, so Rowan, a small Lab mix, kept me company for 5 minutes, proudly showing his bounty but then ducking his head when I suggested he drop it or tried to take it from him. It was the most sublime part of that day.
Dogs are a source of endless companionship and amusement, and what better time than the dog days of summer to highlight their role in our lives?
It can start with a boy carrying a puppy through the rain and turn into a lifelong attachment, where a daily constitutional with the dog is both good exercise and part of the social life of a village.
Some dogs used to take it upon themselves to greet and charm, as with Radar, a basset hound said to be a fixture in downtown Hanover more than 30 years ago.
Dave Cioffi, for years the manager of the family owned Dartmouth Bookstore, said customers routinely would come in with their dogs, and as long as they were leashed, owner and canine were both welcomed.
“Our folks at the information desk used to have little treats for anyone who came in with a dog,” he said. “It used to happen all the time.”
Cioffi said “you’d get to meet people all the time with their dogs and all of their idiosyncrasies,” the latter referring to both.
Pet names are almost always telling, and Cioffi recalled a dog owned by the late Donnie Perkins, known by many as the bartender and sports aficionado at 5 Olde Nugget Alley. Perkins was a New York Yankees fan, and his pooch was named “Slider,” in honor of ace Ron Guidry’s best pitch.
Here at the Valley News, a couple of us are beagle fans, despite, or perhaps because of, their penchant to follow their nose wherever it takes them. Fifteen years ago, I used to sometimes have to fetch a beagle-Dalmatian mix named Sally (she came to me with that name) from neighboring villages after she wound up on someone’s doorstep following a lark in the woods.
Fortunately, she didn’t suffer the fate of Gromit, a young beagle that was visiting Woodstock with his owners in 1998 and wound up being shot by the Windsor County sheriff at the time for chasing deer. Gromit didn’t make it, sadly, but the sheriff also wound up losing at the polls.
Other than their roaming and howling, beagles truly are lovable.
As Harper’s Illustrated Handbook of Dogs famously wrote, “A Beagle will accept as much attention as you offer, then demand more.”
Good doggie.
John P. Gregg can be reached at jgregg@vnews.com.