Right off the top, before I let you know anything else, let me say one thing.  Here’s the one thing: Do not bring a puppy or a dog to my house or office as a gift or as a “test drive” animal.  Now that we’re clear on that, we can start.

   This past week, we said a “fond goodbye” to “Archer, the Wonder Sheltie.”  He has been the family dog for going on 14 years now.  He’s been a great pal, companion, housemate,  confidante, walking buddy, and all-around, as they say, “man’s best friend.”

   Depending on which method of “dog years” calculation one uses, Archer was between 84 and 98 years old.  It’s not an exact science.  He lived somewhat longer than expected for a Shetland Sheep Dog, aka Sheltie.

   Archie didn’t start out as a Sanpete dog.  His puppyhood was in our daughter’s household “up north.”  He liked to bark when the garage door went up or down, and when the dishwasher was started, and when – well, you can fill in the blank of any number of other things.

   So,  between having an infant in the house needing undisturbed sleep and a  “day sleeper” next door needing undisturbed sleep, it seemed like a good idea for Archer to take a Sanpete vacation for a while.   The “while” turned into a time period that just now ended.

   Many of you have gone through the joys of life with dogs.  We’ve had a dog during most of our 47 years of marriage.  It’s pretty much been a constant.

   It’s estimated that there are 90 million dogs in the USA.  There are approximately 338 million people in the country.  You can do the math.  I think that Sanpeters probably beat the average for having furry friends around us.

   Of course, the downside of having dogs is that everpresent knowledge that the life of a dog is relatively short.  We’ve had several over the years, as have many of you.

    Maybe you’ve heard this little story before.  There once was a man who went to a fortune teller.  He was told that in about ten years or so he would experience a heartbreaking tragedy in his life.  He felt awful and depressed about this bad news predicted for his life.  So he went out and bought a puppy to make himself feel better.

   Archer and I took a lot of late night walks together.  We learned poetry together.  We sat on the courthouse steps and worked on “The Cremation of Sam McGee” (Robert Service – 1907) which I recited at a family reunion.  The poem is about a guy during the gold rush in the Yukon who is “mushing” his way through the snow on a dog sled.

   His buddy had made him promise to cremate him if he died on the trail.  There is indeed a cremation described in the poem.  But there is a “happy ending” – so don’t be afraid to read it.

   There is a line in the poem which reads, “…And the heavens scowled, and the huskies howled, and the wind began to blow…”  At that point, my ideal fantasy was to have Archer howl, or at least bark, on cue, at that moment during the recitation of the poem.

   Try as I might, Archer pretty much didn’t “get it.”  He’d look at me like I was off my rocker when I would give him a signal and howl attempting to get him to join in.  Anyone passing by might have thought the same thing about me.

   I blame my wife for Archers’s inability for that training attempt.  She’s the one primarily responsible for curing Arch of his bothersome barking years before.

   He didn’t like water, so a spray bottle worked quite quickly to get him to knock off the barking.  He was soon conditioned to shut up with the raise of a hand with no spray bottle even involved.

   Sometimes Archie and I liked to play the game of guessing what color the next car would be driving down Main Street late at night.  For some reason Archer always guessed black, white or gray – while I was guessing all the colors of the rainbow.  He seemed to always win.  (However, contrary to my long time belief, research reveals that dogs can actually see some muted colors – mostly yellows and blues – but not reds and greens)

   I often told people that I had been teaching Archer arithmetic.  If he was with me, I could show off his math ability by asking him, “Archer, what is the answer to this problem: two minus two?”  I would then pause and declare, “Correct!”  I would look at the “audience” and report,  “he said –  nothing.”

   Archer was a “gentleman” to the end.  He wasn’t a complainer.  His arthritis and other age-related problems became too much to handle.  He quit eating. Days passed.  This is a common end of life scenario when body organs are shutting down.

   He let us know that he was done with this world.  It was a tough decision to go to the veterinarian for a “goodbye appointment” which would hasten the inevitable.  The vet was great.  She was very compassionate and assured us that the tough decision was the right one.  Archer’s passing was medically easy and very quick.

  There was some weeping for the occasion, me included, of course. Our granddaughter, who is attending Snow College, was with us.  She was one of the “little girls” all those years ago who received the Archer puppy.

   His “arrow shaped flash of white” on him prompted the name he received.  She recalled, “He was the best dog ever for a little girl.”  There was sadness throughout the family.

   But, as the old movie title tells us, “All Dogs Go to Heaven.”  (And believe it or not, we had a dog die on the night that some of the family went to that movie when it was playing at the theater many years ago.)

   If you’ve got a dog, give that furry friend a hug, a scratch around the ears,  and a pat on the head.  Enjoy the fun and companionship – and the love.  — Merrill