Campbell Danny - Good dog: true stories of love, loss, and loyalty

If a dog will not come to you after having looked you in the
face, you should go home and examine your conscience.

W OODROW W ILSON

A s I write this, my five-month-old son, Sam, is lying on a blanket in the living room, surrounded by toys. Hes cooing and babbling and kicking his legs. Of course, Im watching his antics with delight, marveling at the changes each day brings to his coordination and personality. But my eyes are not the only ones on Sam. Just off the edge of the blanket my Boykin spaniel, Pritchard, lies with her head on her paws, tuned to the action.

Like most dads, I have big dreams for my son. Sams youth will be filled with love, encouragement, and exploration. He will also never be without a dog. I believe nothing builds a kids confidence and sense of worth like caring for a canine.

Thankfully my parents werent cat people. The first dog of my childhood was a mutt named Flap Jack. He came by way of a family friend who lived well beyond the city limits of our Savannah, Georgia, home. The product of a tryst between local strays, Flap Jack was flea ridden and frightened of a human shadow when we picked him up. My oldest brother, Bob, who had valiantly lobbied my parents for a dog, couldnt get close enough to pet Flap Jack for a week. And though my parents had given in to Bobs pleas for a pup, there was no chance the animal would be allowed in the house. I watched as Bob, with the help of our next-door neighbor, built a run and a doghouse, complete with a shingled roof. And I watched as the frightened little pup eventually learned his name, found trust in those who fed him, and became a dog. I followed the two of them around as little brothers do. And I remember the day, some years later, when Bob told me he was going to college and that Flap Jack would now be my dog, my responsibility. I recall exactly where I was standing in the yard and the sound of the cicadas and the feeling that I had become something altogether different than I was.

A few years later, when I graduated from eighth grade, my parents gave me a yellow Labrador retriever I named Salty Dog. I had dreams of running Salty in field trials and wading into duck swamps with him in the predawn darkness. But when Salty was just over a year old, he developed a dangerous habit. He would often bolt from the yard in the middle of a training session and not return for hours, sometimes days. Our vet suggested that neutering Salty would solve the problem. But a few weeks after the big snip, I was tossing a ball for Salty when he lit out for parts unknown. I went running after him, but my legs were no match. As usual, my mom and I piled in the minivan and went looking for him. We had no luck. Back at home, there was a message from the vet on the answering machine. Turns out Salty had shown up outside his office doora two-mile trip that involved traversing a busy roadslobbering on the glass until they invited him in.

We picked Salty up and returned home. A few days later, he hightailed it yet again, and about an hour later the vet called. A couple of weeks after that, the same scenario played itself out. This time my dad drove me to the vet. On the way home, I asked my dad why a dog would be so intent on running to the vets office when most dogs hated going. With a bit of hesitation, my old man answered, Maybe hes looking for his balls.

Salty never lived up to my field trial hopes, but he did live up to his name, accompanying me throughout my youth in a jon boat on the coastal waters. He died many years later after I had graduated from college and moved to New York City to become a magazine editor. Even though his Houdini-like escapes had long since stopped (initially curbed by an electric fence and later old age), I had decided that an NYC apartment was not the place for a dog used to napping in the warm sun and tormenting squirrels at his leisure. The teary phone call from my mother not only left me crying but also dogless for the first time since I was a child.

That void would not be filled until the arrival of Pritchard. I had left NYC for a position at Garden & Gun in Charleston, South Carolina. My bride to be, whose roots ran centuries deep in New Canaan, Connecticut, was unsure about the move, but her spirits were buoyed by the promise of a dog (and warm winters). We quickly settled on a breed, and not long after we had six pounds of wriggling puppy. Pritch was the first being that we loved together. And we spoiled her rotten. I once again dreamed of training a world-class gundog, but Pritch had other ideas (mainly sneaking onto the bed for a nap when no one was watching). Still, she loves to be in the field. And one day soon, if Im lucky, Sam and I will head outdoors together, following Pritch into the woods.

Around the Garden & Gun offices we often joke that the magazines Holy Trinity is bourbon, dogs, and barbecue, but dogs truly reign supreme. Since the magazines first issue (Spring 2007), weve included a column called Good Dog, and from the start its been an overwhelming reader favorite. The concept is simple: Find great writers who want to tell stories about their dogs. The canines can be purebreds or mutts, good or bad, living or dead. And some of the best writers in the country have answered the call. I challenge you to get through John Ed Bradleys tale of his smelly, drooling bulldog without shedding a tear. Or finish Bronwen Dickeys paean to pit bulls without changing your tune on the breed. Or make it through just a few paragraphs of Jonathan Miless essay about his failed bird dog without laughing so loud youll make sure no one is looking. For this book we compiled the best of the best and added a bunch of great new essays too.

Im hoping my boy, like most of the writers in this book, will grow up to be a dog person. And if he calls me one day to ask whether I think he should get a dog of his own (or one for his kids), Ill tell him what my friend Guy Martin wrote in these pages: Its simultaneously never the right time for a new dog, no matter what, and always the right time for a new dog, no matter what. In other words, get the dog. I hope he listens.

David DiBenedetto
Editor in Chief
Garden & Gun
Charleston, South Carolina

S he marked the beginning of our marriage, arriving just a few months after we walked down the aisle, during that heady time when life seems so full of hope and possibility. But no way were we having a kid, not yet, so Sweet Emma Pearl curled up in a little yellow ball and rode, whimpering, in Julies lap the entire four-hour drive home from my buddys house. Seven weeks old. She slept in our bed and lay down beside the tub whenever either of us took a shower and laid her head in Julies lap for every meal we ever had at home for close to a decade. Its not dirt if it came off Emmas paws, Julie liked to say, even when the dirt was swamp muck or the red clay from a Piedmont dove field. We loved that dog as only a young couple starting out in the world can love a dog thats all their own. So to us it was only a charming part of her canine nature that she had the appetite of a goat.