It was seven years ago this week that a bird dog-looking pup came to live with me.
I had been a widower for about six months and my daughter thought I needed a companion around the house, so she brought over a little guy with short white fur and lots of little brown spots. The offspring of a German Shorthaired Pointer and a Heeler, he got the coat and color of the Pointer and the body of the Heeler.
I named him Martin as an inside joke. I like Martin guitars a lot - so much so that I often refer to things as being the Martin of this or that. Nikons are the Martins of cameras. Ambassadeurs are the Martins of fishing reels.
Whenever someone would ask me if there was anything I wanted for Christmas or a birthday, I would say: “I could use a new Martin.”
So, it was close to my birthday and I had a present. Martin seemed like the obvious name.
A year or so later, I added a second dog and named him C.F., which will make sense to guitar enthusiasts.
Martin turned out to be a great dog. I retired for seven months not long after he came to live with me and the two of us had several interesting adventures.
We took my pickup on a couple of turkeyhauling trips to Kansas, worked a lot around the house and had many trips to the lumber yards and feed stores.
He was a friendly little guy, loved to play tug of war and chase a ball and pretty soon was on the list of lifetime favorite dogs, which is a notable achievement.
Back when I was a kid, I had a black and white dog named Feller who was the reason I got to go fishing by myself when I was 8 years old.
Feller probably was a mix of German shepherd and border collie. Trying to remember and looking at photos, I might guess he went around 60 pounds.
We wrestled and played tug of war and he went everywhere I did around our house west of Fitzhugh.
There was a large watershed lake across the road maybe a quarter of a mile from our house. My mother could see the entire lake from the window and would let me go fishing by myself. As long as Feller went.
She trusted me not to fall in the lake, and for everything else her faith was in Feller and his instincts as a 60-pound guardian angel. Any creature or person that wanted to hurt me would have had to get past him, and I don’t think many would have found it worth the trouble.
One day we went fishing and caught a bass that weighed almost four pounds and Feller was as excited as I was. I guess he didn’t know the lake held anything bigger than the five-inch perch we usually caught.
A few years later, I had a border collie named Lady who developed two interesting skills.
Playgrounds are scarce out in the country, so I started using our cellar door as slide. It was corrugated sheet metal and smooth and actually worked well as a slide unless you tried to use it during the heat of the day.
After watching me make a few trips down, Lady decided to slide, too, and really seemed to enjoy it.
After we moved to where there were more kids around, Lady watched us play baseball and joined in our games. She would watch the pitcher and crouch when he’d throw, then run after the batted ball.
Slow rollers she would grab on the run. If it was a line drive, she would let it hit her in the side and then pick it up.
Martin doesn’t have any skills to compare to that, but he’s been a terrific friend. And I am pretty sure you’ve been waiting since the third paragraph for this line: He’s the Martin of dogs.
Happy coming to live with me anniversary, old pal.