To Your Dog and To My Dog

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by Lincoln Newton Kinnicutt

Dear Dogs:—

I have brought together in my library a few of the many proofs that show how true is the affection which many of your masters have for you, and some-time when I can read them to you privately, you will understand more fully the place you hold in our lives. I use the word MASTER only because our language is too poor to express in one word the real relationship which exists between us, we the master, and you the devoted slave and trusted servant, the most joyful of playfellows, and the best of companions, the bravest defender, and the truest friend. I wish I knew the word in your language which expresses all that you are to us. I also wish I knew how much you know, and could learn the many things you would gladly teach us.

You can see what we cannot see.

You can hear sounds we cannot hear.

You interpret signs we cannot read.

You[Pg viii] scent the trails we cannot find.

You talk to us with your speaking eyes, and we cannot understand.

You are sometimes cruelly treated, and so are human beings, and sometimes we have to punish you for you are not always good. You have a certain amount of deviltry in your nature which we rather like, for it makes you more human and lovable. Your sins, however, are mostly against the laws we have made for you, not against your own, or those of nature, which are the laws of a higher power than ours—the one who made you.

What glorious times have we enjoyed together tramping or riding through the fields and woods, over the hills and by the streams and through the swamps, or at the sea, on the sands and rocks, or over the salt marshes, with gun or camera or botany box, or with nothing at all! We have shared the best the[Pg ix] world can give us, nature's gifts. And returning home, tired and happy, we in the evening, before a bright wood fire, you close by our side or at our feet only so that you can touch us, have lived over what the day has given us. Or sometimes at night before a camp fire with the quiet of the wood sounds all about us, have dreamed of the ducks and the grouse and the partridges, or of rare flowers or a beautiful landscape which the past day has brought, or of what the next day will bring. And perhaps you have dreamed also, a little selfishly (you are only selfish in your dreams) of the rabbits and squirrels and the woodchucks which have been the greatest temptation for you to resist all day long. They must have existed long ago in your garden of Eden.

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Posted in: Poetry