The Dog Who Loved His Pa

Copyright 2024 by Abbie Johnson Taylor

 

 

Clancy, an Irish setter, came to us in the spring of 1977 when I was a high school freshman in Sheridan, Wyoming. One evening, I went with Mother to look at some puppies a woman wanted to either sell or give away.

Despite my limited vision, I could see them, in a box, all red. Most were squirming and whining, but not Clancy.

Mother lifted and held him, and I gazed at his red body with the floppy ears, wagging tail, and distinct nose. “Oh, how cute!” I cried, stroking his head.

He didn’t whine or move. “This is the one,” I said.

“I think you’re right,” Mother answered.

A week later, she and my brother Andy, seven years younger, brought him home. By then, he was no longer the sweet little guy Mother held the week before. Rambunctious, he wouldn’t sit, stand, or be held for long.

Dad wanted the dog’s full name to be Chem Shenanigan Clancy Leroy. In Irish, Chem and Shenanigan mean Jim and mischief respectively. Leroy, my paternal grandfather’s name, means king. This was Dad’s reasoning. Since Andy liked the name Clancy and wanted the dog to be his, that was what we called him.

The woman we got him from told Mother about an obedience class for puppies that would take place in the park near our house that summer. We tried this but soon discovered that obedience was not Clancy’s forte. The gathering with other puppies was more of a playtime for him. Dad managed to teach him to sit at intersections when we took him for walks, but that was it.

Despite Andy’s attempts to bond with Clancy, the dog eventually became Dad’s companion, accompanying him daily to the shop where he sold and serviced coin-operated machines. On the rare occasion Dad couldn’t take him, as he walked out the door, he said, “Not you.” Clancy stayed back, and I could imagine the sorrowful look in his eyes.

To get to the high school, I needed to cross a busy intersection and walk through the park and up the hill. When the weather was nice, Dad and Clancy often walked me to school. In those days, dogs weren’t always required to be on leashes. Once we cleared the intersection and entered the park, Dad let Clancy off the leash, and I loved watching the dog scamper ahead of us, then turn around and run back to be sure we were coming.

After school and on weekends, we frequently walked Clancy along the creek, where he swam, then climbed out and shook himself, splattering us with water. Many times, Mother, Andy, and I drove Clancy to the cemetery and walked him there.

In the winter, Dad and Clancy often drove me to school. Because the road that led up the hill from the park was not kept clear of snow and thus unsafe to drive, Dad took a different route. But once we got closer to the school and in an area with less traffic, Dad let Clancy out of the car, and the dog ran alongside us.

Clancy loved smelly things like rotten fish heads and cow droppings. Once he got into any of that stuff, getting the smell off him was a chore. Occasionally, Andy hosed him off in the back yard. Most of the time, Dad gave Clancy a shower in the upstairs bathtub, causing water to go everywhere, much to Mother’s consternation.

In summer, my family frequently attended band concerts in the park on Tuesday evenings. Of course, Clancy came along. Afterward, we walked to a nearby ice cream stand for dessert. Dad got Clancy a scoop of vanilla ice cream. After telling the dog to sit, he fed him the treat, one spoonful at a time, much to everyone’s amusement.

One summer while I was still in high school, I tried running. I could see the high school track well enough and knew where to go. Many times, Dad and Clancy drove me there early in the evenings when it was cooler and ran with me. But although I loved watching Clancy dashing next to me, his floppy ears and tail waving, I found this form of exercise exhausting and eventually gave up.

After we got Clancy, Mother wanted him neutered, but Dad wouldn’t hear of it. “It’ll ruin his personality,” he said. What could we say to that?

But in the spring of 1985, while I was home from college, Clancy somehow broke through a neighbor’s basement door to get to a female dog in heat.

“That’s it,” Mother said, after paying for the damage. “I’m getting him neutered.”

Dad didn’t argue. But he called the vet to ask how the procedure would affect the dog and was assured Clancy wouldn’t change as a result. Dad seemed more at ease about the whole thing.

We kept Clancy in the house most of the time until he had the operation. He wandered aimlessly, whining, and there wasn’t much any of us could do to comfort him. But after the procedure, he was his usual rambunctious self.

In the summer of 1985, Dad suffered a heart attack. While he was in the hospital, Clancy seemed lost without him, following Mother around and whining when he got tired of following her. Andy and I took turns walking and playing with him, but that didn’t seem to fill the void. When Dad finally walked in the front door, Clancy barked, wagging his tail, running in circles around him, and jumping on him once or twice.

By the summer of 1988, when Clancy was eleven years old, my parents were amicably divorced. Dad and Clancy moved into a smaller house across town. We still got together as a family: the four of us plus my paternal grandmother, who also lived in town and whom we often visited with Clancy.

That summer, while I was home from college, with Mother’s help, I got Dad two Father’s Day cards: one from Clancy and one from me. The card from Clancy had a picture of a dog and said, “I love my pa.” Dad never saw that card.

It was an unseasonably warm June. Dad’s house had no air conditioning and neither did ours.

The night before Father’s Day, Dad let Clancy out, so the dog could cool off. Clancy never returned. Dad finally wandered around the neighborhood but couldn’t find him.

I learned all this the next morning when Mother told me. Dad had phoned her to explain the situation. He then called the police to report the dog missing.

That afternoon, Dad came by and told us the bad news. The police had  found Clancy dead by one of his favorite spots, the creek.

Dad speculated on what happened. Irish setters aren’t known for their intelligence, but Clancy was smart. He knew how to get from Dad’s house clear across town to Grandma’s house. He also knew Grandma’s house was cooler.

After Dad let Clancy out, the dog walked to Grandma’s house and scratched at both the front and back doors, whining in an attempt to be noticed and let into the house. Grandma, fast asleep upstairs with the window air conditioner on, didn’t know Clancy was there. When he couldn’t get into the house, he wandered to the nearby creek and was found there the next day. He may have gone into the water to cool off, but since there was no evidence of foul play, we could only assume he died of heat exhaustion.

Andy was off somewhere that summer. So, it was just Dad, Mother, and me, sitting around the dining room table, crying and passing around a picture of the dog Dad recently took. Finally, Mother said, “He had a lot of good years.”

“He could have had a lot more,” Dad countered. What could anyone say to that?

Needless to say, I didn’t give Dad the Father’s Day card from Clancy. The one from me, with a picture of a bottle of Scotch on a bed of rocks, said, “Here’s a gift for my dad who loves Scotch on the rocks.”

Since Dad enjoyed this beverage, it was fitting. He laughed when he saw it. But my family will never forget the dog who loved his pa.

 

My Inspiration

 

The above memoir appears in the spring/summer 2025 issue of Magnets and Ladders, which you can read here. It won an honorable mention in the magazine’s contest and was also published on BeetleyPete’s blog in 2024. I was inspired to write it last year while taking a class from Glenda Beall, who blogs here. Thank you for reading.

New! Living Vicariously in Wyoming: Stories

Copyright 2025 by Abbie Johnson Taylor

Published independently with the help of DLD Books.

 

Image Description written by Leonore Dvorkin of DLD Books.

 

As defined in the first story, living vicariously means living your life through someone else’s. You’re invited to live vicariously through the lives of the people in these stories. There’s the lawyer who catches his wife in the act with a nun. A college student identifies with a character in a play. A young woman loses her mother and finds her father. And a high school student’s prudish English teacher strenuously objects to a single word in her paper.

In Wyoming, as in any other state, people fall in love, and sometimes relationships are shattered. Accidents, domestic violence, prejudice, and crimes all occur. Lives are torn apart, and people are reunited. Ordinary people deal with everyday and not–so–everyday situations.

The 25 stories in this collection, most of which are set in Wyoming, are about how the various characters resolve their conflicts—or not.

 

Click here for more information and ordering links.

 

Photo Courtesy of Tess Anderson Photography

Photo Resize and Description

by Two Pentacles Publishing

 

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