Saturday, September 21, 2013
“Bonnie,” a very friendly canine, is a 6-year-old border collie and the unofficial greeter at White House Fruit Farm. She brings smiles to everyone with her engaging personality.
Recently I was there in a pouring rain, and there she was performing her daily task of retrieving small twigs tossed by customers. As I came out with my shopping cart, Bonnie placed a twig on the bottom of the cart. She waited for me to toss it out into the parking lot so she could retrieve it. She fetched it and brought it back to my cart and placed it on the bottom. A very smart canine.
Hunting dogs
I have always liked dogs and during the Great Depression, my father Giovanni (John) Lacivita and his brother, Tony, used beagle-hunting dogs to put food on our table. Namely, rabbit stew, buckshot and all.
In 1968 I bought a beautiful Westie (West Highland White Terrier) named “Scamp” who was instrumental in my winning two KINSA (Kodak International Newspaper Snapshot Awards), in 1969 and 1975.
The old saying “A dog is a man’s best friend” is outdated. Today I see many women walking dogs, so the adage should be “A dog is a man’s and a woman’s best friend.” My neighbor, Michelle, walks her dog “Cosmo” up and down our street on a daily basis. I can understand how people can become very attached to their pet dogs.
This year I lost both of my beloved grand dogs, daughter Linda Kriezer’s 141/2-year-old Shih Tzu “Polo” and daughter Sandra Vicarel’s 12-year-old Shih Tzu “Tessa”. To fill in the void, Linda has just acquired a matched set of 9-month-old Shih Tzu’s, brother and sister, “Livingston” and “Lilly.”
Michael J. Lacivita is a Youngstown retiree and member of the Ohio Senior Citizens Hall of Fame and Ohio Veterans Hall of Fame.