Just a Dog

My father is the reason I love dogs so much. Well, perhaps not the only reason, but a huge contributing factor. We had several dogs as I grew up, and some of them were mine, but others were definitely my fathers. We didn’t always have dogs growing up, but the ones we had very memorable for different reasons. Two of the most memorable were his, one was his protector, the other was something else. I think the two that my father owned that had the largest impact on my life were these two. But there was another one that I barely remember, but I still somehow loved it. That dog had a profound effect on me as well and colored how I would see the animals. His name was Wilbur.

I should tell you a little about my dad. He was born in Kansas on December 11th, 1939, the youngest of four children. My grandfather moved the family to Utah while my dad was little to take a job working at Kennicott Copper’s plant as an electrician. He soon had enough money to buy a farm on the eastern side of the state in a region called the Uintah Basin. This farm of about 400 acres in rural eastern Utah is where my father grew up. They raised sheep, hay, and had horses and a few heads of cattle. He rode his horse to grade school, which doubled as a church house for those in the area. The high school expelled him before he graduated and never went back and instead entered the workforce.

Dad worked many jobs throughout his young adulthood, especially after meeting my mom. At the ages of 19 and 16, they got married and started having kids. The oldest was my sister Debbie, who recently passed away, then my brother Jim JR. They would have three more daughters, and after a long gap, one more son. Me.

My father helped construct the Flaming Gorge Dam and was one of the last people to travel through the valley’s, gulches, and draws before they filled with water. He worked on the farm, harvesting the hay, caring for the cattle, and maintaining the equipment. In the late 60s, my grandparents were fortunate enough to have money coming in from mineral rights that they owned. They used the money to buy new equipment, pay off a new house. My father learned to use the equipment and learned its quirks.

Dad loved horses, old cars, hunting, and he loved to be out in the wilderness. And at 28, he broke his back while hunting near home. It crippled him for the rest of his life, but he kept right on working. Despite the pain, despite the anguish, he worked almost till the day he died in 1995. After he broke his back, no jobs would hire him, and so he did odd jobs, scrapping metal and cutting wood were two of the most common ones.

But I’m getting a little ahead of myself. I came along in 1977; unexpected. Dad was mostly helping with the farm at that point and my siblings were all in high school or near highschool age. In fact, within a couple of years, my brother would marry and have his first kid on the way. So my oldest sisters and sister-in-law raised me as much as my mother did.

We also had a dog. Or at least the family did. Wilbur was his name, and he was pretty amazing, at least what I remember of him was. Wilbur was a Boston Terrier and I can remember running and playing with that dog. Petting him (nicely) and cuddling with him. My memory is foggy about him, and I’m stretching back to my earliest memories. But the fact I can remember him, and that it was a positive experience left a deep impression on me and how I would come to view dogs.

I know that Wilbur died, but I don’t remember why or how and remember being very sad about his death though. His death seemed to happen around the same time as my grandfather’s death, but I do not know which death occurred first. I know that I didn’t quite understand what happened in either case.

The picture included is of my father with Wilbur. Though I’d like to think Wilbur was mine, he was clearly my dad’s dog. Dad really loved that dog, and you can tell. This is the world I came into: loving parents, supportive and loving siblings, and a man that loved dogs as my father.

Next, I’ll talk more about my father, and about one of the most amazing dogs I’ve ever known: One Gallon.