Woof!

By Robert Freeman

Robert Freeman is a Harvard summa, a Princeton PhD, and a Steinway artist. Over forty-two years of marriage to his wife, Carol, he has been the proud master of seventeen tenured dogs—eleven of them golden retrievers, six of them American dogs. Having made tenure at MIT, he directed the Eastman School of Music for twenty-four years, presided over the New England Conservatory for three, and served as dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University of Texas at Austin for seven. This book develops the joys of pet ownership together with the responsibilities that should accrue to those who take on that responsibility.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 27, 2019
• ISBN: 9781644626740

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Woof!

Robert Freeman

Copyright © 2019 Robert Freeman

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING, INC.

New York, NY

First originally published by Page Publishing, Inc. 2019

ISBN 978-1-64462-673-3 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64462-674-0 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

In loving memory of my darling wife, Carol.

(1935–2018)

Woof Pictures

Pierre Barrington, our first dog, as an old fellow.

Carol with Pierre in preparation for a birthday party.

Annie Scio, contemplating mischief.

Oliver Clinton.

Upper: Oliver. Carol with friends in Vermont; Lower: Oliver and Lacey Louise.

Oliver.

1316 East Avenue, Rochester, the Eisenhart House; note canopy over the main entrance onto which Sport climbed to survey the scene on a main Rochester thoroughfare, amazing passersby.

Sport.

Carol with Pierre and Oliver in the woods near Bristol Harbor.

Upper: Carol and friends in Vermont. Charley and Mikey. Lower: Rose. Charley as a puppy.

Carol with Charlie and Mikey.

Well…Of the quartet of goldens here pictured, only Chaco, second from the left, ever belonged to us. Here, he is seen with his foster siblings in October 1996, at the Finger Lakes National Park: Mello (age seven), Chaco (six), Ben (six), and Baxter (two). They aspired to be the first all-golden string quartet but lacked adequate training.

Chaco with Haley (age three) and foster mom, Debbie.

Bob and Carol with Charley and Mikey on the front steps of our Vermont paradise.

Scott’s Hall of Canine Fame plaque in our Quechee living room.

The author on the beach at Hilton Head with Chaco and Mikey just before inventing the Eastman Initiatives.

Jackson, Rusty, and Chipps studying Texas deer through our disputed backyard fence.

Billie.

Rusty.

Our grandson Nick Poon with Chipps.

Introduction

During August and September of 1972, when I was young and underpaid, I gave a major paper at the triennial meetings of the International Musicological Society held that year in Copenhagen. Then I collaborated with Luis Leguia, a fine young cellist from the Boston Symphony, on two dozen recitals in Germany, Austria, Belgium, and England that began with three concerts at the Berlin Festival and ended with a Wigmore Hall debut. While I was in Europe, my first wife purchased a dog, though I had urged her not to, for she had no previous experience with dogs. A month after my return to the States, I was appointed the fourth director of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester and spent the rest of that academic year directing Eastman, teaching an MIT course on opera and drama with A. R. Gurney Jr., and playing Mozart K 365 on a tour of the MIT Symphony with John Buttrick under David Epstein that included concerts in Philadelphia, Dallas, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Chicago. While I was away, Cindy, our new dog, got pregnant, delivering nine puppies the day after Eastman’s commencement and two days before we were to leave as a family for a month in Europe, introducing myself at my new boss’s request to the directors of the principal European music schools. The father of the nine puppies was identified as Bones Phegley, though the widely varying appearances of the nine puppies suggested the probability of multiple fathers.

To the rescue came my new Eastman administrative assistant, Carol, who had agreed to the care of one dog but initially had no idea that she was about to play hostess for the summer to a mother dog and her