Perfect Dog Tales

By Patrick Wilkins

Contained within these pages are more than thirty of Wilkins’ favorite animal stories, a book dominated by dogs. “When wolves decided it would be okay to become lapdogs,” Wilkins says, “human beings got a benefit beyond measure.” But in the telling of his tales the author acknowledges the worth of many other creatures.
The stories here range from the mystery of who killed Lincoln’s dog to a canine burlesque star to a dog that accompanies a trek to Oregon to escape the Midwest Dust Bowl, from a car chaser’s passion to the only dog know to file a writ of habeas corpus for freedom, from a red rooster that captured the heart of a town, to monkeys as aides to paraplegics to goats that forecast weather and volcanic rumblings. And a dead whale who tale circles the world!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Patrick Wilkins
• Release date: Nov 1, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301629749

Patrick Wilkins

Patrick Wilkins is a retired Pacific Northwest TV journalist, and although he has been both a news director and anchor, he is perhaps known best for his many years on the road as feature reporter for the ABC affiliate station KATU in Portland, Oregon. “Kinda like Charles Kuralt with a smaller territory.”

Book preview

(And Stories of Other Remarkable Animals)

Author’s Note:

Just how dogs domesticated humans beings will forever be a mystery, although many learned writers have tried to explain the phenomenon. It may be that the wild canine family through the years simply used a sort of reverse psychology on us, leading us to believe it was they who were being tamed.

Thus, we gave dogs special places at the hearth and home and in our hearts. We warmed them, fed them, and learned to love them. Obviously, just the way they wanted it.

But something happened that maybe they didn’t count on; they fell head-over-heels in love, too. With us. A love so strong it further weakened human resistance to their presence, and at the same time convinced us there is nothing they wouldn’t do for us. And thereby cemented the idea that we are masters in this union of man and man’s best friend. Just the way we wanted it.

That bond of love is demonstrated again and again in the stories I tell in this book.

Nonetheless, as remarkable as our dogs are, there are other animals of similar stature. Cats, for example, though loved and loving, are independent creatures that only tolerate humans, I think, and I’m not quite sure how they got on the same gravy train as dogs, but the tales of cats recited here show their worth.

I’ve also selected a number of other extraordinary animals whose stories are noteworthy, even astonishing. Human beings are always involved, part and parcel, in relationships with all these creatures. Some of which do not love us nearly so much as do dogs. And some of which do not love us at all. But all those selected for chapters in this volume were chosen because of their compelling stories of human attachment and canine connection. 

Foreword

It is not unusual for us humans to have a pet we connect with, a pet that becomes almost like a member of our family. That is probably why over 60 per cent of the households in the United States have at least one pampered pet. Collectively we spend more that 50 billion dollars annually on our pets, double what was spent only a decade ago. But pets give back to us humans, too. In addition to faithful companionship, pet owners also enjoy numerous benefits including greater psychological stability, a measure of protection from heart disease, lower blood pressure, the ability to relax in stressful situations, lower rates of depression and overall improved health.

In Perfect Dog Tales (And Stories of other Remarkable Animals), my friend and accomplished Northwest author Pat Wilkins details the close relationships that stretches between humans and their pets. We learn about famous people and famous pets, and some stories that are the most touching of all are about ordinary people and their ordinary pets. As a former well-known newscaster and television commentator, Pat covered many of these stories in print and on camera. Other stories are Pat’s reminiscences from his childhood. Pat recalls a time he was doing an on-camera interview and the dog that had caused such a stir in the small Oregon hamlet of North Plains, reached out and placed his paw on my shoulder and Pat goes on to relate the photograph that was taken remains, one of my most prized possessions.

Pat tells these stories of the interactions between humans and pets with compassion and humor, and he treats the wide range of pets with equal empathy, whether they are dogs, cats, reptiles, monkeys, a notable rooster or even in the retelling of an amusing experience of fellow newscaster Paul Linnman and his encounter with a beached whale.

Readers will savor the stories Pat Wilkins tells in this book. It will make you feel good about the special emotional bond you have formed with your pet. Read and enjoy.

Rick Steber 

Fido

(Who Killed Lincoln’s Dog ?)

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Soon after President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, the loving dog he left behind in Springfield, Illinois when he was elected to the presidency was murdered by a mean drunk. And while we know all about John Wilkes Booth, slayer of the president, mystery surrounds the identity of the killer of Lincoln’s dog, Fido.

In the era of today it may seem that in a town as small as Springfield was in 1865 (estimated 15,000 pop.) that the act which obviously was witnessed, but perhaps reported only by word-of-mouth, would nonetheless put a name to the drunkard. But no! The Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum secretary, Thomas Schwartz, says none of their records identify Fido’s assassin. And Marilyn Lynch, librarian at Springfield’s major newspaper, The State Journal-Register, that evolved from the Sangamon County Journal of Lincoln’s time, tells us the paper does not seem to have the information, either.

Still, the killing of Lincoln’s dog obviously was a incident important enough that knowledge of it has carried over into today. So it seems almost beyond belief there is no available record of the slayer’s name. It could be of course since this was another time (1865-66) that not so much importance was attached to the act; far differently than how we see it today. And for that reason, perhaps the name of the cruel drunk was not so significant as the name of Fido, a dog once owned by the president and maybe still thought of then as Lincoln’s dog.

So now, when somebody says Fido you immediately think dog, the dog, any dog, all dogs. And maybe more than a few people, thinking about Fidos everywhere, might also want to know further about the one canine who perhaps more than any other is responsible for making the name Fido into a blanket meaning for all dogs.

That would be Abraham Lincoln’s dog, Fido, a mongrel of a yellowish brown color reminiscent of mustard, bom maybe in 1855. But he was dearly loved by Lincoln’s boys, Willie and Tad and it was accepted that Fido belonged to the sons, but the people of Springfield, Illinois where the family lived always referred to Fido as Lincoln’s dog.

Fido came into the Lincoln family about five years after Abe had turned down an appointment to be governor of the Oregon Territory and five years before Lincoln was elected president, which is to say the dog had a pretty good life in Springfield.

No doubt he was a pampered pet. He had the run of the town, was allowed to reside in the Lincoln house, come and go at will, and was permitted to lounge on furniture, especially on a favorite horsehair sofa.

Apparently the name Fido for a dog was popular during Lincoln’s time, and quite understandably because the name stems from the Latin fidelis the meaning of which is faithful. And we all know that dogs are absolutely faithful, establishing themselves as man’s best friend. And the Lincolns remained faithful to Fido until Abe was nominated for the presidency.

The sound of cannon fire and fireworks to celebrate Lincoln’s election to the presidency so frightened the dog that Lincoln was certain Fido could not stand the strain of the constant loud noises of Washington, D.C. So when the President-elect took his family to the White House he gave Fido to the family of a friend, John Roll, whose two sons, Frank and John, were delighted to have a dog of their own, especially the dog of President Lincoln. Along with Fido went his favorite sofa and the Rolls promised he would have the run of the house. Lincoln’s sons were not pleased, sure enough, to leave their beloved pet behind, having only a photograph of him to take to Washington. It’s said the Lincoln boys probably never saw Fido again.

When Lincoln was assassinated and his body brought home to Springfield for burial it’s said Fido watched the funeral procession, standing silently among the mourners. But there was more. In their monumental 1965 book Twenty Days about Lincoln’s assassination, Dorothy Meserve Kunhardt and Philip Kunhardt, Jr., disclose that Lincoln’s dog became something of a celebrity when one of the Roll family sons, John Linden Roll, brought Fido to the former Lincoln home to greet the hundreds of out-of-town funeral visitors.

The little wagging-tailed dog was in high spirits, says the Kunhardt text. The Lincoln dog caught everyone’s fancy immediately as being an important historical character, and he was taken to the photographer Ingmire on the Square, for pictures of Fido still extant today.

Sadly, less then a year after Lincoln was shot down by the assassin John Wilkes Booth, Fido was the victim of a similar fate, murdered by that drunk. John Linden Roll, shortly before his death in 1943, described the dire incident:

We possessed the dog for a number of years, Roll wrote, when one day the dog, in a playful manner, put his dirty paws upon a drunken man sitting on a street curbing [who] in his drunken rage, thrust a knife into the body of poor old Fido. He was buried by loving hands. So the Lincoln dog met the same fate as his famous master, and though his grave is unmarked and there is no memorial edifice, we can take solace in his legacy of giving his name to mean all dogs.

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Still, there is the disturbing mystery, the name of Fido’s assassin goes unknown. 

Shep

(For Love of a Sheepherder)

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Everybody in Fort Benton knew the sheepherder that boarded the east- bound train was dead. Everybody, that is, except his dog who of course had no understanding of why his master was put in a big long wooden box and loaded into a freight car for shipment to eastern relatives and burial. The shepherd/collie dog, seemingly of a strain developed for sheep herding skill and with unsurpassed will