Cave Canem

By Brian J. Meline

An intimate collection of vignettes about dog ownership, and learning to live with a dog and our human short-comings. If you ever wished you had a dog, read this book. It may change your mind. (Color photos)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Oct 24, 2014
• ISBN: 9781312534605

Book preview

Cave Canem

CAVE CANEM

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Or

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WHAT MAKES DOG STAY

(OBSERVATIONS OF A CANINE PET)

Copyright

This is an autobiography, and as such, represents one person’s viewpoint. It is not intended to represent or allude to any organization or to the position of any organization, or privately or publicly held company; nor is it intended to represent or proxy any other person’s views, opinions or beliefs. It is not to be construed as supporting the rights of any person or animal, or any such organization. It is a true story only so far as the author tried to put in writing the impression of what was happening to him while owning a dog.

PHILIPI PRESS

FIRST EDITION      2014

Copyright c. 2014

by Brian J. Meline

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.

All rights reserved.  No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author and publisher.

Digitally authored in the United States of America

Meline, Brian Joel, 1955 -

Cave Canem: Observations of a Canine Pet

ISBN 978-1-312-53460-5

10  F  E  D  C B  A  9  8  7  6  5  4  3  2  1

Foreword

Nobody decides (out of nowhere) to get a dog, or any pet. The seed is planted in the mind of an owner or future owner years and decades in the past.

I was one of four children in a household barely into grade school and we all decided we wanted to get a dog. Overriding the warnings and cautions of our parents, we got a dog. It got sick and died.

So,…we got another dog. After the choosing, and the naming (older brother didn’t like pepper as some dog, maybe far across town was named pepper and it might be confusing). Control games don’t go over well with siblings. The dog was named Pepper. After failing to walk the dog, and take care of it properly (in the eyes of our parents), one day mother took the dog to a farm and gave it away. In retrospect I think the dog liked the change of scenery.

We didn’t get another dog. After a succession of other pets for which I was the only owner (turtles, parakeets, etc.), I took after the neighbor dog, a tan spaniel named Sam. The neighbors moved away after my graduation from high school, and dogs vanished from my world.

In adulthood, one brother got a Springer spaniel named TJ (named after its mother, TJ; clever, huh?) and although gifted like any dog, she wasn’t used to hunt much, but left to go to seed. She mated with some other dog and had puppies, one which was kept. After several rounds of requests for looking after her and her puppy, driving across the state, I decided that dogs weren’t a part of that present time.

Then, in my thirties I started shopping for a house. When I got one, I instantly thought of getting a dog, and after one thing or another (such as work and late spring blizzards) I did manage this in May of that first spring.

Enter my own dog, an English Springer spaniel. And thus I started into dog ownership. I call it The Unknown Land of Dog, because until a human is an owner, entirely responsible for the dog, one doesn’t appreciate what life has been or will be like.

Ad Terra Incognita Canem

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Caveat Hominem

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(Please read A Matter of Latin at the end.)

Etymology

Canis

Irregularly derived from Proto-Indo-European *ḱwōn (root *ḱwon-/*ḱwn̥-/*ḱun-), presumably via *ḱwn̥nV-.

Cognates include:

Ancient Greek κύων (kúōn), Sanskrit श्वन् (śván), Old English hund (whence English hound), Old Church Slavonic сѫка (sonka, she-dog) and Lithuanian šuõ.

The Spaniel Speaks:

"This story would have been different

if a dog wrote it, by paw.

"Take everything in this book

with a crumb of biscuit.

Don't believe everything you read.

In Search of … Lost Socks

(Or scent of a master)

Dogs when they are small are bringing in new teeth to replace their baby teeth, and are thus teething constantly for months, just like human children. Like humans, they find relief with teeth-ing (chewing)… something. Anything, really.

I didn’t catch on to this (like most things) the first time through her life. Thus door jambs, furniture, silverware, sticks, broom-handles, anything was fair game. I did eventually get her rawhides, and she took to them, well, like a dog to rawhides, the smellier the better. Lo to the master who puts his/her fingers in a teething dogs mouth. Mother’s of newborns learn this when they have teething children. The closest single guys can come to this is with a