A Drop In The Digital Ocean

Procyon

10/08/23 01:41 PM Filed in: Family

Procyon was my first dog. I was in Charlottesville, VA one weekend, probably around 1977-78, visiting my then girlfriend and riding horses with the gang. I suppose we had finished riding for the day and Kathy¹ was petting one of the farm dogs. I asked her if I could hold him. As I held him, I told him that I wished I could take him home with me. Unbeknownst to me, his owner had walked up behind me and said, "You can. I'm giving him away." I called my dad that night and asked if I could bring him home when I came back Sunday night. He reluctantly agreed. We had lost our family poodle, Peppy, and I suspect he wasn't yet ready for another dog. Went riding again the next day. A low branch caught my glasses and knocked them from my face. I dismounted to look for them and finally found them under my horses' hoof. My guess is that my glasses had fallen into my lap and when I got off the horse they dropped to the ground and the horse deliberately stomped on them. I didn't have a spare, but one of my friends had a pair that would allow me to drive home the next day during daylight. So I called dad and said I wouldn't be home that evening as planned and asked him one more time if it was ok to bring a dog home. With a deep sigh he said, "I guess."

I named him Procyon, which is the brightest star in the constellation Canis Minor - the "little dog". Later that evening I passed my dad's bedroom. He was lying in bed with Pro standing on his chest being petted. A few years later, when I told dad that I was getting married, he said, "That's fine. You can go, but the dog stays." But I got the girl² and the dog.

The first picture I posted of Pro was here. The above picture was taken sometime after 1984. More pictures under the fold.

Christmas 1982

July 1983, with "the girl" and our firstborn.

April, 1984

Procyon and David, October 1985.

Thanksgiving 1985, taken at dad's house in Virginia.

Possibly April, 1985.

Dad and David, probably Thanksgiving 1985

Unknown date.

When Pro was a passenger in the front seat of my car he didn't like going under bridges. He would duck down in the seat when the shadow of the bridge passed over him.

One night, when I was still living at home, I was walking him. He was off his leash because he was a good boy. There was a loud bang, perhaps from a firecracker, and he took off like a shot down the street, turned left into our cul-de-sac, and disappeared from view. When I got home I found my dad laughing. He had been lying on the couch in the den when he heard a knock on the door. He got up to look and no one was there. He laid back down and again heard knocking. Thinking the neighborhood kids were playing a prank he got up and opened the storm door. A tan blur streaked past and went under the bed in my sister's room. Smart dog.

[1] Not my then girlfriend. Although I was told that both of them discussed which one of them would date me.
[2] Not my then girlfriend, either.