How I Met My Dog

To say that the Cooper family is a dog family is an understatement.

We’ve got two dogs in the house on Muriel Road, and I can’t remember a time, with the exception of dorm life in college, when I did not live with a puppy dog.

The Coopers lived on Walker Road in Swampscott in the 1960’s and our cousins lived in Wakefield which, to a 5-year-old, might as well have been Western Canada.

One summer the Cooper’s got in the station wagon and headed off to Wakefield, mom, dad and three boys, ages 5, 3 and 1, and we brought the collie along, Cammie. 

On the way home, on what I would later learn was Highland Avenue, Keith the 1-year-old got sick, and we pulled over on what I now know is Danvers/Swampscott Road next to the Salem Transfer Station. Everyone piled out of the car, including the dog, Cammie, who sat on the curb while order was restored. 

The Cooper group got back in the car and drove home, the next morning, at breakfast, Cooper’s started asking, “Where’s the dog?”

Well, we searched the house and next door, and we figured the dog was missing. So dad and I got back in the station wagon and drove back up to Danvers Road, and there sitting patiently by the side of the road right where she got out of the car during the sick kid experience, was Cammie the collie, patiently waiting to get back in the car and come home.

Must love dogs, indeed.

The Cooper dogs have different stories on how they got to Muriel Road. Talan, the Yellow Lab, was purchased at the pet store for $1,400 back in 2006, after many futile attempts to get a pound puppy before Christmas.  Talan is the first dog that didn’t come from a shelter or Animal Rescue League facility in my 52 years of living in Swampscott.

Deacon, the 6-month-old puppy, came from a kill-shelter in South Carolina. The puppies are on death row unless someone pays $200 and then they get shipped to their new owners. Every time the little guy licks my face, I get a chill that we saved him. When he eats my shoes, it gets me a little upset, but then he licks my face again, and we’re cool.

“We wanted to get another dog because Talan only likes dad,” 14-year-old Jake Cooper said. “Talan follows dad around, so we wanted a dog that would like us.”

The Cooper’s are four months into the Deacon-Talan experience, and I’m pretty sure that Deacon likes me as much as Talan does.

The Kirbys

“We needed something special for John junior’s birthday,” Diane Kirby said of her family’s Golden Retriever Chester.  “John and I have been together since high school and this was the first dog we’ve ever had.”

“Chet’s getting a little older now, but he loves to walk the beach and I love to walk the beach with him, we got him from a breeder in Plimpton, he is a big part of our family.”

The Mahers

Bruce Maher had his German shepherd pup out for a stroll along King’s Beach last Friday; he lives across the street from King’s Beach with his wife.

“We actually went up to Augusta, Maine this past Christmas Eve, my wife and my mother-in-law and picked Jetson out at a breeder, it was a Christmas gift to ourselves from each other really.”

“His full name is Jetson, but we call him Jet, he’s a pure German shepherd, he was expensive, but we love him to death.” “He’s 14 weeks old and he’s such a joy, so full of life.”

The Nardone/Franklins

Genga the Australian shepherd dog lives with his family, Jocelyn Nardone and her fiancé, Merrill Franklin off Essex Street.

“We actually bought Genga from friends of ours who had him when he was younger,” Nardone said. “Our friends had kids and put Genga in a cage and he nipped at the kids and scared them, so they didn’t feel safe about having a 12-week-old puppy in close contact with 2- and 3-year-olds, so we bought Genga from them.”

“There were no hard feelings, Genga’s a good dog, he’s just needs to have a little bit more training and discipline before he’s loose around children,” Nardone said.

The Dorseys

Jen Dorsey, who is involved with , the Swampscott Park for Off Leash Time, has a beautiful mutt living in their house named Luther.

“My "step" mother-in-law runs a dog rescue, and she called when I was six months pregnant to say she found a dog for the future grandchild that was kid tested, and cat approved.  Our first glimpse of our dog was at his foster home, where he had squeezed all 85 pounds of himself under the coffee table, afraid to come out and meet us.  Five years later, we can't imagine our days without our silly, lovable lug.”

The Fillers

Lisa Filler and her son 11-year-old son Aryeh were headed to last week to take their dog Berkshire out to stretch his legs. The Filler's got Berkshire at the Northeast Animal Shelter. "Berky" originally came from the Virginia mountains.

The Filler's were looking for a dog that would love kids, and Berkshire fit the bill.

"We met him and we immediatly knew he was the dog for us, his name was Bucky, but we changed it to Berkshire after the mountains," Lisa said.

Berky will turn 2 in April and he's a Border Collie-Beagle-Daschsund mix.