Pure Joy Read Free

astonished person holding her. They are an incredibly loving breed.
    Fortunately, my youngest daughter, Zara, was so fed up with dogs, she didn’t want one, which was an enormous relief. We had a house full of dogs, each with its own personality, as well as the traits of the breed. The kids were very good with them, responsible for them, but let’s face it, that was a flock of dogs! And their father was teaching the children how important it was to love dogs, which was probably a valuable lesson, but it seemed like an army of dogs to me!
    One thing that always fascinated me was that if one of the dogs made a “mistake” somewhere in the house, everyone always reported it to me—and I didn’t even have a dog. I would call in whatever kids were around, since the problem had obviously been caused by one of their dogs, and I expected them to clean it up. The kids would then arrive on the scene, examine the problem intently, and announce, “It wasn’t my dog.” Excuse me? Do the dogs sign it or what? How do you
know
it wasn’t your dog? Please! “Nope,” the owner of the dog wouldsay with absolute certainty. “I can tell, it wasn’t my dog.”
How
can you tell? You
cannot
tell, and since I didn’t do it, one of their dogs did. We had some real battles over that, and no one
ever
confessed to their dog’s mistakes. So either I’d have a fit and tell them to clean it up anyway (less often), or I’d just give up and clean it up myself (more often. I told you, I’m a total sucker for kids, even more than dogs). I will never understand how they could look me in the eye and say it wasn’t their dog, but they did, regularly. The high (or low?) point of these disputes happened between my daughter Beatrix and son Todd, when each flatly refused to admit to their dog’s guilt, and for once, I wouldn’t back down. I told them to resolve the argument and clean it up! Their compromise solution was to get a disposable plastic knife and cut the “problem” in half. Each cleaned up half. Problem solved!
    Other than that, all the kids and dogs got on very well. It made for an incredible scene when we left for the weekends in a stretch van with all nine kids, their backpacks, sports equipment, musical instruments, suitcases—and dogs. None of the dogs ever fought, and all were very sweet. The kids didn’t fight much either, which is one of my theories about big families. With so many siblings to choose from, the dynamics of big families are fairly easy, and maybe the dogs proved that as well.
    I took a slightly removed position about the dogs then. They were a sort of extension of the kids, and I had no particular preference or attachment to any of them. After all, they weren’t mine—they belonged to John and the kids. So I felt responsible for them in a caretaking role but possessive about none of them. I had never really fallen in love with a dog since my very first one when I was six. And maybe his untimely death made me loath to get too attached to another dog myself. I hadn’t really become a true dog person yet. (I should perhaps mention that John had also acquired a Vietnamese potbellied pig by then too, named Coco Chanel. We were promised that she would grow no larger than 35 pounds, but she made it to 250 pounds with ease. And let me tell you, that is one uncharming pet—their virtues are vastly overrated. The only amusing thing about her was that she had a vet named Dr. Bacon. Other than that, I did not enjoy her! So I am clearly not a pig person.)
    I was happily rolling along, driving car pool, going to soccer games and ballet classes with the kids, shepherding my kids and their dogs, and writing books at night. Life seemed pretty simple then (to me, at least—I was used to the circus of our daily existence), and to be serious for a moment, they were the happiest years of my life and I knew it even then. I loved my big family and everything that went with it!!
    One day John and I were browsing through an