My Father’s Day column

Twenty-plus years ago, my daughter insisted on bedtime stories about Jasper, my first dog. My Father’s Day column, I offer her this written version. To begin: I wasn’t allowed pets as a kid, a loss I’ve (over)compensated for, and Jasper was my 21st birthday gift to myself. A newspaper ad brought me to a farmer’s kitchen upstate New York where this grunting, wrinkled 7-week-old hunk climbed onto my lap and, exhausted by that effort, fell asleep. We didn’t spend many nights apart over the next 13 years. 

As a pup, Jasper developed a passion for squishy things in tubes. He broke open several bathroom cabinets to steal toothpaste (best dog breath ever!) and caused quite a scare after swallowing the contents of my artist-girlfriend’s tube of blue paint. The vet confirmed no toxic ingredients but for days it looked like an alien with impolite toilet habits landed in our snow-covered neighborhood. Speaking of his digestive tract, my parents didn’t know I’d given up meat when they arrived proffering a 10-pound kosher salami. After some outing, we returned to my apartment to discover Jasper had chosen against letting their gift go unappreciated. The picture of satisfied gluttony and absolute misery, my 95-pound dog spread across my bed emitting groans and sulfurous fumes. He slept there for days. I camped out on the couch. Then there was his “rescue” of me floating in a rubber raft on Russian River, resulting in punctures (raft), drenching (the two of us), and my swimming him to shore with the mass of rubber still in his teeth.