The List

I do not know what inspired me to draw up a list of every dog that has ever been part of my life, but I did. I think I was about 48 years old and there were 35 dogs on the list. If you do the math, that's close to one dog a year from the age of ten on, and that certainly has not been the case. What that means is a theme that runs deep through my youth: excess. Quite simply, we Levys had to have the biggest, the best, and the most of everything, including dogs.

I think things started innocently enough with one boxer, bought by my father the day we moved into the stone farm house in which I spent ages 2-21, and whom, according to family lore I named "Puppy" when he drove into the driveway with the squirming pup. He had grown up with a boxer and when Puppy ate the fringe off my mother's new hall carpeting, she retaliated with a representative of the breed with whom she had shared her childhood: a collie, Handy.

Puppy and Handy were joined in rapid succession by a dog for me (of course), a Norwich Terrier named Buttons who proceeded to have a litter of pups so we could share her bounty with our friends. Buttons begat Mittens among others, who ended up with some of my parents friends. For some reason she is the only pup I remember.

And then it all just snowballed: dogs arrived home with my father when he went on business trips (a Scottish terrier named Poochie). We procured them from pet shops on family trips (a pekingese named Snoopy). We found some (a Schnauzer we named Sylvia who was eventually reunited with her rightful owner) and found homes for others (a Keesehund named Fluffy who was just too high strung to live on a mere two acres).

Dogs were just a part of our existence--usually in multiples of four and there was always room for one more especially when it was ours who were doing the multiplying.