Chapter 3 Excerpts
Welcome To Sherburne, New York
"When it came to one red light towns, Sherburne New York in the 1970’s was at the very peak of it’s small town prime. A tree lined village with an assortment of parks, 30 MPH speed limits, meandering creeks and no ambitious dog wardens trying to climb the political ladder of the three manned police department.
The singular red light sat square in the middle of the village and the streets were lined with beautiful nineteenth century victorian houses. Village merchants were in the last great phase of general prosperity and every store front had an open for business sign. Sherburne was a good hour from the new large malls or super shopping centers. It wouldn’t be long before people would shift their spending patterns towards these malls. For the time being, you still bought your sneakers, neckties and watches from village merchants. Sherburne may not stand out as anything special among the hundreds of small towns scattered about America but on a warm spring day with a slight breeze in the air, Sherburne had a distinctive smell, an aroma of a kin that sets it apart from any place like it on earth.
Dog food!
Peel back the wrap on any “Gaines Burger”, stick it up to your snouzer and on a good day that was the smell of Sherburne. The Gaines Dog Food Factory was started in Sherburne. The villagers grew up with that smell and with Masters’ limited aromatic senses, it mostly went unnoticed. Dog food odor was mixed in with the trees and flowers and farm manure and it was simply the smell of home. For us dogs, we woke to the smell of dog food. It filled our senses every conscious minute. We couldn’t escape it. It didn’t just mix in, it overwhelmed and even with our canine ability to separate smells it could at times dominate our snouts. This may explain why I HATED dog food. It was in me every day, through my nose, in my pours. The last place I wanted it was in my mouth."
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Puppy Love
"On the subject of no control, being a puppy is basically the definition of the term. You are either dependent on Master, dependent on your bodily functions or dependent on your instincts. The first two are simply Master’s duty as Master. But truthfully, it was Mother Master who had the time and patience to train me to crap on world leaders faces. And it was Mother Master who I was in tune with for the sounds of feeding time. You know, the clanking of certain cupboards. The grinding of the can opener. Even the placement sound of the doggie dish to the floor that only I could differentiate from say, a garbage can or a mop."
Crow Envy
" I’ll never forget that day. The family had been gone most of the morning and there I was chained to that damn laundry pole. I was mad with curiosity. I’d bust ass for ten yards then... snap, back on my butt I’d drop. Maybe the problem was that there wasn’t any fence or shrubs or garages to block my view. I could see it all. The entire universe alive with smells I couldn’t trail and creatures I couldn’t chase.
A bird, a crow actually, landed on the far end of the clothes line and looked down at me with all the knowledge, experience and security of a “wise old bird”. It knew I wasn’t a player in the grand scheme of things. It knew I was a slave. It knew it was revealing itself to me like a doggie playboy centerfold- or in doggie slang, “she was throwin’ me a bone”. I was young, a virgin. I knew nothing of the bitter tastes, the joyous contrasts of blood and feathers truly free dogs would savor. I may not have known the taste or how to get me some but I could sure envision that crow with it’s spindly claws dangling from my jaws."
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