Dogs I Have Known

June 25, 2026 by DickH Posted in Uncategorized Leave a Comment

Dogs I Have Known

By Leo Racicot

I didn’t always like dogs. When I was 8 or 9, I was walking through North Common when a big German Shepherd began following me, barking its head off, baring its teeth viciously. It chased me onto a bench where I stood for what seemed like the longest time until it finally gave up and let me get down.

But for the longest time, I bothered my mother to let me have a big dog, not a Shepherd, a setter, Irish or English. My friend, David Bowles, had one, Freckles. Freckles, a frolicsome setter, would often follow David and me whenever we’d head out on our explorations. We three mostly liked to tread the crags and crevices of The Ledge, a weedy, wooded stretch next door to Club Lafayette. The Ledge was located where now the Jaycees Housing Project is. It was a jungle-y stretch of fun that appealed to our boy’s sense of exploration. Freckles liked it, too, and I can still see him leaping among the rocks, his floppy ears positioned for whatever critters might be nearby, whatever adventure lay ahead. We, one time, walked all the way to The Roundhouse, on Wannalancit Street near Bartlett School. A day of joy.

My mother decided I was too young to take care of a dog, that a setter was too big for our apartment; it wouldn’t be happy here. So, that dream was dashed. She did allow Diane and me to have a small dog, a poodle we named Gigi Mimi (Diane said she had to have a middle name) Diane also remembered a little white dog Marie gave us. I have no memory of this white dog. Neither Gigi Mimi nor the white dog stayed with us long.

When she was in her early twenties, Diane discovered Pekingese, fell in love with the strain and began to breed them, as a sideline. Over the course of a forty-year period, she kept and loved twelve and I grew to love them, too. There were sometimes 4 and 5 of the runty loveable little mops running around the house. For many years, there was a story in the family that Diane’s partner, Rico, “came to the house to buy a dog and never left” (he did leave after 28 years but that’s another story for another time). Over the years, the Pekes were: Mio, Pudge (Pudgy, Mio’s mate), Pebbles, Brownie, Cashew (Cash), Prince, Buffy, Jake, Lucy, Emily & Buddy, all darling dogs, each, of course, with a personality all its own. As for Mio — I was living in the downstairs apartment, Diane and her friend, Carol, upstairs. It developed that, any time Mio had the chance, she’d rush down the stairs to see and be with me. I adored that girl and she sensed it. We adored each other. In short order, she became my dog. We were inseparable. The way she came to her name was this: I still feel peculiar telling the story of how she was given the name Mio –people still scratch their heads puzzling out how a Chinese breed wound up with the Japanese name, Miyoshi. At that time, I liked the Japanese actress, Miyoshi Umeki. Thus my dog became Miyoshi, Mio, for short. The inevitable teasing — Leo & Mio — began but as I say, we were a perfect Ike and Mike match. I loved her pretty face, her expressive, almost doll-like features and antics. We went everywhere together. On our long walks, Mio especially loved going to Wingaersheek Beach; we made a lot of trips there. One time, we drove all the way to Race Point near Provincetown. The waves that day were tall as mountains, taller than the waves in a Hokusai print. I still see Mio racing to-and-fro, so excited was she to be in this exhilarating place. Seeking to duplicate this adventure, I took my boss, John Callahan, up on his kind offer to let us do an overnight stay at his Uncle Bill’s cottage in Dennis. I don’t know why but Mio hated the stay, whined and cried the whole time until I felt I had to bring us home. One of the lingering regrets of my life is that I took up with a fellow named Peter, was spending so much time with him that it didn’t leave much time for Mio. She was getting on in years, suddenly began moping, pining, wasn’t drinking much, eating even less. She developed kidney issues and had to be put down. I was with her when the vet applied the needle. I don’t think she died from the poison or kidney failure. That beloved, little girl died of a broken heart, due to my negligence and the selfish choices I made.

All the Pekes Diane kept became our animal family. Pebbles was the tiny clown of the troupe; I’ll never forget when she gave birth, her natural maternal instincts didn’t kick in; she had no clue what was happening to her as one after another of her first litter started to emerge. Clearly, she was overwhelmed to where she stopped cutting the umbilical cord with her teeth and was, instead, running around in circles frantically, the puppy whipping around with her at the end of its cord. Rico stepped in to play midwife and saw to it the puppies were safely delivered.

Pudgy was a live wire, liked to bark and jump at nothing and everything. When my friend, Jane Wall, came to visit, he immediately ran over and bit her through her boot. Pudge was no bigger than a wish. To see him go up against people and dogs bigger than himself was comical. Pudgy was fearless.Pudgy and Brownie did not get along, constantly having to be separated. Following one episode, Brownie injured a disc and was never able to walk again.

Darling Prince looked just like his mom, Mio, and for that I loved him. He had a charming habit of showing you he could sit on his backside and balance himself for long periods of time. Prince lived a long life. One morning Rico woke up to find Prince had died in the night beside the kitchen stove.

Cash was the most beautiful, little guy; he was all white, pure white fro head-to-toe. A real stunner. In his last days, he would snuggle up close to me on the floor and just be with me, quiet, still.

Jake was a dog who, like Joseph in The Bible. had a coat of many colors. Gorgeous dog. Late in life, he was diagnosed with Cushing’s Disease and took to eating constantly anything he found on the floor or ground. He ballooned up to an enormous size and had trouble breathing, walking, Cushing’s is fatal. Jake mercifully passed away from his many days of suffering at the age of 13. I liked taking him and Emily for walks on North Common. Once we got over there, one would head in one direction, the other in the opposite direction. It got so I wasn’t walking them, they were walking me.

Emily was a sweet, sweet Southern girl. She came to us from Louisiana. She’d somehow survived Hurricane Katrina. Rescuers found her cowering underneath a truck at the gas station. As a companion, she was a total delight. When happy, she’d get on her back and do a Happy Dance, wiggling back and forth in obvious joy. Following a bad fall down the back stairs, Emily went blind. Over the next months, we watched in awe as she managed skillfully to learn to deal with not being able to see, finding her way around as if she could. I miss that little girl.

Lucy was a rescue animal who’d been abused by men. Whenever I came to visit, she’d follow me all over the house trying to bite me. She never did though, a case of her bark being worse than her bite.

I became so fond of all Diane’s dogs. But Buddy; now Buddy became another Mio. That boy adored me and I, him. Buddy was a wonder. Friends shake their heads in disbelief when I tell them that Buddy “talked”. He had a deep, gruff, old man voice and would actually make very human sounds in response to what you said. Amazing. Following a throat wash the vet performed on him, his voice disappeared. How I loved and still miss the many epic walks Buddy and I took together, all around The Acre and beyond. We even went as far as the Bridge Street Bridge. I’d bring my camera along on these picture taking trips and it got so Buddy knew instinctively when I wanted to stop to snap a photo, would wait for me until he heard the camera’s click then merrily lead us on our way. Buddy Racicot– camera assistant. I loved that boy to pieces. He struggled most of his life with respiratory ailments until he couldn’t take anymore. He’d have the most alarming attacks. The day Diane and I brought him to the vet to put him to sleep was one of the most heartbreaking days of our lives. Diane was never the same again. Over a period of about twelve years, she had weathered Rico’s sudden departure, then Covid, then Buddy’s death, then the return of her cancer which had stayed dormant for 60 years. It was all too much for her. She passed away in2026 at the age of 68 and is buried with the ashes of her Pekingese. I loved all Diane’s Pekingese, still see each and every one of them through the old telescope of memory, hope one day I’ll see them again…

Oh, I can’t forget Rico’s beagle, Milu, an amazing girl who mostly lived with his mother downstairs. Milu would climb the stairs and actually knock on the door just like a person. At first, we’d say “Who is it?” until when there came no answer, we’d open the door and in walked Milu as if to say, “What took you guys so long??” She was a riot. She loved to go walking North Common with Rico and when he wasn’t quite ready to take her, she’d follow him all over the house until he got out the leash. Never keep a lady waiting! She wound up moving with him to LeHigh Acres and became a true Florida girl, spending her days sunning in the yard.

When M.F.K. Fisher was in her declining years, a battery of home health aides was required to tend to her care. One of these was a very nice lady named Connie Butler. Whenever Connie was around, so was her dog, an Old English Sheepdog that she (and all of us) called Lucy Butler, not Lucy, mind you; it as always “Lucy Butler”. Lucy Butler was a love, friendly to everyone. I adored her and took a lot of her pictures in Last House. She always liked the attention. I don’t know what became of her and no one left of the M.F.K. Fisher Gang seems to know. She must have died many years ago, I’m glad our paths crossed and that I was able to take and save some images to remind me of her from-time-to-time.

Our neighbors, the Deschenes, Teresa (Terri) and Andy had a German Shepherd, Queenie. Queenie was always barking her head off. I was scared of her. She reminded me of the Shepherd who’d cornered me on the Common bench when I was a kid. I don’t trust Shepherds and didn’t trust Queenie, even though I was protected by the fence separating our two properties. She did make a good watchdog. When she passed, Theresa and Andy bought a Saint Bernard they named Clarence. Clarence was the biggest dog I’d ever seen with the biggest head I’d ever seen. A lovable bear of a dog with a quizzical droopy tolerance Nothing phased Clarence and why should it? Not likely anyone was going to bother him! Diane and I used to like watching him sit and drool in the Summertime. A good, good boy.

In the late 80s, early years of the 90s, Nancy and Joe (of Lowell’s N. Blau circle of friends) acquired a canine named Sam. Sam was a mongrel. Whenever we bunch got together to cook, camp out, play music, sing songs, Sam would join us, quietly reclining in a corner or in the midst of us appointing himself Group Mascot, Group Muse for our tender young pretensions. When I left Lowell in’93, I left all these beloved people behind. By the time I returned in 2007, all had vanished into what I call the post-college landscape. That’s Life, isn’t it?

When I came back to the city, I was looking for something to do with my time. Serendipitously, my Cambridge Library colleague, Vicki, asked if I’d be interested in dog-sitting for her friend, Sally, who lived on Riverwalk Way with her husband, Mitch and their two Boston terriers, Reuben (Ruby)and Shecky. I jumped at the chance and became fast friends with Sally (who’s always been a kindred spirit). When she arranged a meet-and-greet with “the boys”, I fell in love instantly with them, especially Ruby who took to me instantly, kissing me in as many places as he could reach. Such a lover boy. Shecky wasn’t sure he liked me. In fact, I know Sally will agree with me when I say that dog hated my guts from the get-go, so much so that Sally and Mitch decided it would be best to board him while they were away. Ruby and I were left to our own devices for ten days and boy, did we have a wonderful, fun time together. Ruby was a frolicking textbook illustration of the phrase “good boy!”. He was friendly, thoughtful, attentive to my ministrations. We had the most engaging times on our walks. Ruby was a darling of a fellow, a wee bit rascally at times but always delightfully so. He was fond of an orange rubber ball and had to have it everywhere we went. If we couldn’t find it, there was no way we were leaving the house without it. Ruby made sure that orange ball and him were inseparable.

There are, for me, fewer perfect pleasures to be had than walking a dog. How I miss my Buddy and the many epic walks we took. I liked bringing my camera with me in case we happened upon a photographic scene, an interesting bower of bittersweet, an oddball garden sculpture. As if psychic, Buddy began to instinctively know when a good shot was coming up. He’d stop in his tracks, look up at the to-be-photographed object, wait until I’d clicked the shutter then proceed, as if to say, “Alrighty then, let’s continue on our way.” I think of him literally every single day, even talk to him. I know his spirit, which was beside me all the time, still hovers in the ether.

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