My father had a very sentimental side, the flip-side to his often brutal roughness.   One night at dinner he was feeding Sassy, the overweight Cairn Terrier, from his plate.   Toto from the Wizard of Oz was a Cairn Terrier and after visiting with dogs at the Westminster Dog Show we’d chosen a Cairn after Winnie, a great West Highland White Terrier went on to her reward.   Sassy was the daughter of Dodie.  Dodie had been a great, spirited little dog and the only one of our dogs (all female) to ever have been mated.   A breeder brought a randy male Cairn around at some point (or perhaps we brought Dodi somewhere, I have no recollection) and a few months later Dodi gave birth to three little Cairn pups.  My sister and I were shocked at how savage Dodi suddenly became when we started to approach her adorable sleeping mice newborns in their nest in a big cardboard box.   

The pups were very cute, and sadly, we were resigned to them all leaving for other homes.   Brer, our favorite, was chosen first, some people came by and bought him immediately.  Then the little female went.  The other, large, flat-backed and paranoid, never found a home.  We wound up keeping her.  My mother named her Sassy.  There was rarely an animal less sassy.   Unlike our other dogs, who slept out in the open and were always happy to interact, Sassy spent much of her time squashed under a bed or couch.    She was heavy and naturally suspicious, frightened, it seemed.   

I have thought of Sassy’s withdrawn paranoia over the years, in the context of nature vs. nurture.  We were there when she was born.  Her two siblings were playful, spirited little dogs.  None of the three had any experience that would make them distrust humans.  But Sassy, when she was not eating, was finding a place to flatten herself and hide.  She often skulked when she was not hiding, as though fearful to be out in the open, and gave the appearance of a giant, furry cockroach.   She was heavy, and sometimes, when it was necessary to pick her up for some reason, her eyes would roll in terror.  To complete the depressing picture, Sassy’s mother, Dodi, a very cool little dog, suddenly took ill a few years after Sassy was born, and died in what should have been the prime of her dog life.

My father doted on Sassy the sad sack.   One night when he was feeding the overweight dog from his plate I snarled at him to stop it.   I was a teenager who frequently snarled at my father at this point.   Our relationship, in fact, was mostly snarling.  A mutual snarling society, so to speak.  It took very little by that time for one of us to begin attacking the other.   The accumulated grievances weighed heavily on each of us, waiting for the next small flash point.  I was disgusted that he was stuffing this overweight dog with scraps of steak from his plate.  My father’s response was unexpected.   

“Food is love,” my father said gently.  I replied harshly that love is love and food is food.  He was uncharacteristically unfazed by my harshness and went on to talk about how sharing food has always been a sign of love between creatures.   He quoted some writer about it.   I snarled some more and left the table in disgust, my regular way of leaving the loving dinner table.   

For the last few years of Sassy’s life, my father injected the diabetic dog with insulin.   Sassy appeared not to object as my father made a tent of the skin on her back and slid in the thin needle.   He did this every night, and it extended Sassy’s sad life by several years.   She lived to be fairly old, as I recall.