Brownie's Story

The picture is not of Brownie. I don’t think we have a picture of the dog, but his ears looked like this. Anyway I have decided it’s time to share the story of Brownie. One of the things that matters is I was three and under when we had this dog.  And he wasn’t really ours!

We lived in a very small town in Idaho then. We lived in the county seat and there may have been 100 residents on a good day.  There had to be a county coroner and everyone just took a turn. It happened to be my Dad’s turn. 

There was an accident and the driver was killed. The only passenger in the car was this big dog. When the family, clear across the country said they wanted nothing to do with the animal. My Dad had a grocery store and butchered his own meat. So the dog ended up hanging out with us. As it turned out he was a good babysitter. I would spend hours on the steps in front of the store talking, petting and reading the books that were there to the dog. (Yes I believed that I knew how to read.)

My brothers had me lay one the dogs back and tied me to the dog. My chin was sore because it was bouncing on his head.

I was about to turn four and we were making our move back to Montana. My father didn’t think it would be fair to bring the dog to a place he would be tied up, as we would be living in town for some time. So the plan was to leave Brownie with my grandparents. 

We had made several trips to take things to Montana and Brownie had seen the cars and trucks come and go. But on the day were we were going to stay, somehow he knew. He chased the car for miles. I cried and cried and believed my Dad was the most horrible person on the planet. 

Finally we turned around and got the dog and took him to my grandparents. They kept him inside with them. He wouldn’t eat. He wouldn’t go outside. He died in just two days. I wish we had a picture.