Modern Vespa

We had a few dogs when I was a kid, but the first dog that was mine was a little terrier cross named Max. I came home from school one day, and Max was in our yard. He just showed up, and my mom said he was mine. This was during the height of the Vietnam War. We were living on Sandia Air Force Base in Albuquerque, NM. At first Max wanted nothing to do with any of us, but after a time we became fast friends.

Max truly became my dog. He was my best friend, and he was my protector. You might say he did his job too well. In the midst of contact sports, Max had to be locked inside the garage or behind the fence. Woe be unto the kid who tried to tackle me if Max as on the loose, and Max could escape the back yard by climbing the crabapple tree and jumping over the fence.

Max bit a few of the neighbourhood kids. Max spent some time in quarantine at the animal shelter. Max returned home, and things were going well, but then there was another incident. I figured Max was going to quarantine again, so I was not surprised to come home from school and find him gone. But I was surprised when my mother told me that the President called and said that they needed Max to go help the troops in Vietnam.

I was a kid growing up on an Air Force base in the middle of a war. I knew dozens of kids who's fathers were involved in the war, and My family had close friends who were in Vietnam as well. Very soon, letters started to arrive telling me about the exploits of Max. In one, we were told that Max was "leaping from the trees onto the Vietnamese!" They called him "Max the Wonder Dog."

I had a dog who was a war hero.

It wasn't until several years later that I realized what an elaborate story my mother and step-father had concocted to avoid telling me that Max had been put down. I still think of him as a war hero though. He would have done some serious damage to Victor Charles. I am sure of it.

Sad but beautiful. You had very kind parents. I think Max would have been a great war hero.

Thanks for sharing this story. What a nice way to finish my session on MV. Heartwarming...

Thanks for the comments. Of all the dogs that have been a part of my family, Max stood out as truly being Fido.

What an unexpected end to a touching story.
Max was a good boy for his master (you).
Thanks for sharing.

Good (and poignant) story. Hard to realize you've been deceived, but there are times, I suppose it's for the best...or at least your parents think so.

Reminds me of the dog I had as a 10 year old. It was some type of mid-sized terrier. In my dad's world, as a dairy farmer, dogs were for work, specifically for herding cattle and keeping varmints away. Companionship was secondary. We'd typically "lose" a dog when it started slowing down.

This dog was an ace as a pal for a young lad. We hung out a lot, he was always in pictures of me at that age. I convinced him to be my copilot when I rode my coaster wagon down the hill into the barn....me facing forward and steering, he riding backwards.

One day he showed up missing, and my parents told me that he must have run off. I must have been heartbroken, though hope of his return kept me from feeling too sad...and he slowly faded from memory.

A few years back, my mother told me that he had actually been roaming around with some other dogs in the neighborhood, chickens were killed, and he was implicated. I suppose he had too many strikes against him....not a herding breed, so wasn't earning his keep and wouldn't stay home at night (and you shouldn't HAVE to tie up a dog at night, should you? ). Clearly keeping a dog as a pet just wasn't going to happen. Took me almost 20 years to have a dog that was "mine," but that's another story.

You have very thoughtful and creative parents, ckaiserca. Nice story!