I was one of three pups born to Gunner and Chloe. All accounts are that my dad was a handsome dog (I don’t doubt it) and my mom kept quite busy herding my two brothers and sister around like cats as we frolicked over hill and dale.
By THEO CHIPKIN
I hear it’s my birthday.
The truth is, I don’t really remember much about my birth, but then again who does? When it comes right down to it, aren’t all birthday stories at bottom somebody else’s version of something we can’t recall. It’s not until much later that we look back upon our grown-up selves and wonder, just where we came from.
In my case it’s a farm in Rhode Island, where I’ve been told I was one of three pups born to Gunner and Chloe. All accounts are that my dad was a handsome dog (I don’t doubt it) and my mom kept quite busy herding my two brothers and sister around like cats as we frolicked over hill and dale getting used to what we thought would be our home forever.
Alas, home doesn’t stay home for long on a farm, and breeders don’t have the luxury of maintaining nuclear families. My breeder said she doesn’t even name her puppies because if she did, she could never let them go. And letting go is what breeders do. Luckily, my master already knew that if ever she got a dog, his name would be Theo, after Theo Epstein, the general manager of the Red Sox who ended the World Series curse. I don’t believe in curses and Theo Epstein has departed the Red Sox and is off trying to end a curse somewhere else. But I like my name, so in that way it was all really a blessing, Red Sox or fan or not.
In any event, I had the rare puppy luck of leaving the farm with my brother who was bought at the same time by my master and her sister.
Sisters getting brothers. I like that part of my birthday story.
The dog tale goes even farther back than that. It seems that my master never gave in to the persistent requests of her three young children to get a dog.
“You don’t need a dog,” she always said with the staunch encouragement of her husband, who had a pretty good idea that his place in the family pecking order could only be diminished by adding a canine. “You have sisters.”
Even better, she had a sister, their aunt, who lived nearby and had a golden retriever, Casey, who served faithfully as the family dog as the kids grew up.
And that would have suited everyone just fine until the family dog met an untimely death just before the holidays leaving everyone so bereft that that Christmas will forever be known as “the year we lost Casey.”
Casey and JoAnne O'Neil on summer vacation
In fact, the grief was so great that my master’s sister vowed she just couldn’t stand to get another dog until she realized soon after that she couldn’t stand not to.
And so mostly as moral support my master went dog shopping to the farm in Rhode Island and lo and behold the sisters came back with brothers.
And that is the rest of the story.
So around Christmas each year the families gather and quietly celebrate the day that my brother, Brady, and I joined the sisters and the kids and we became a “blended family.” Sort of like the Partridge Family, except of course, we're dogs.
Now I know that many humans don’t like revealing their age, but I don’t mind. I’m three, which I’ve been told in people years is really 21, although I can’t figure why any self-respecting dog would want to know how old he was in people years when he is most definitely a dog. It’s like saying a person who is 40 is only 20 in elephant years. Who, other than an aging Hollywood starlet reduced to playing opposite Dumbo, would say that?
Still, if the sisters insist upon celebrating the brothers’ birthday, we really don’t mind. We get silly doggy toys that we tear apart searching for the squeeky bladder inside, and snappy matching bandanas that we wear twice before chewing them to ribbons. We hear bad dog jokes from the relative who shows up faithfully bearing what he calls our new leash on life, and we’ve been known to don goofy hats that make us look decidedly undoglike.
If we’re cute enough (and we always are) we get a piece of cake that is in strict violation of the no begging rules that are enforced vigorously the rest of the year.
For our masters it’s a special day. For us it’s no big deal because when you’re a dog every day is special.
Still, it makes them happy and so we’re happy.
Dogs are like that.
Happy birthday to us.
See you around the cake scraps.
Theo Chipkin doesn't do email. But you can reach him through his agent at rchipkin@repub.com