My life has been defined and shaped by the four dogs who have been my friends and confidants. Jacque was first. He was a mistake. His mother, a full-blooded poodle, escaped from her pen and palled up with a determined terrier. The result was a sweet, intelligent hybrid who loved chasing rocks, retrieving box turtles and small kids.

I had just started the third grade and my brother the first when Mom brought Jacque home. Our neighborhood street dead-ended into our school’s football field, so we could walk through a clump of hickories and oaks, up a graded hill and into the back of Woodward Elementary.

We hated to leave our new best friend in the morning, and when school let out, my brother and I would race each other home. The first to arrive would scoop the little guy up, hug him and the

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