As with most things in my past I can't remember the exact time frame, but since I do remember that my brother was walking and talking, this must start around 1978.  Our first pet was a dog.  A puppy just weaned off her momma.  She was a small breed, I can't recall which.  She was brown.  She was full of energy.  We got her from my uncle, who's dog had had puppies.  I was terrified of the dog when we first got it.  I held her and I think she tried to bite me.  Time passes.  It could have been the next week or the next month.  She was an outside dog.  We were all outside with my mother.  She was hanging clothes on the line, I believe.  We were playing, me, my sister and my brother.  We lived in a trailer.  The trailer was in the foundation of an old barn.  There was a corner of the foundation that was still the original rock, with a very nutrient rich area of soil.  This is where my Mom had planted flowers.  My Dad had gotten ahold of some sort of wheel like thing, a Google Image search points me to spinout rims, that sorta look like what he had.  Anyway, he had three or four of these and one was put into this fertile corner of the ground as sort of a border for the flower garden.  The other three were not in use and my brother and I were rolling one around.

Our back yard, if you could call it that was on an incline.  It made sense, at least at the time to let the rim roll down the hill, to see how far it would go.  And boy did it go.  It went over the large mound of dirt in the front yard, that my Mom was going to use for a flower garden as well.  It continued going across the ditch and over the small two lane road, and then into the field across from that road.  Our puppy, whom we had named Poochie, was excited as hell, something to chase.  And she chased it, like any good dog would.  Over the dirt pile, over the ditch, across the small two lane road.  The rim didn't go too far in the field, and she was sniffing it all out.  The field was new territory for her.  I was, and I think my siblings were as well, terrified.  Poochie was not in the yard.  She was in the field, and had crossed the road, where cars flew by.  So we all three went down to the ditch, and my Mom yelled at us to stop, because well the road was dangerous.  We started to call for Poochie to come back across but she was too busy exploring the new smells of the field.  And then as if she was suddenly tired of exploring she came running up the field and onto the road.  Time for me, slowed down to a crawl.  Even now at 35, I can still picture the car speeding along up the road. I saw it at the mailboxes and for a moment it froze there, as if my brain had paused a film, because it didn't want to deal with what was coming.

I remember hearing a yelp and then I saw Poochie get struck in the hindquarters of the wheel closest to us.  She had almost dodged the car.  The three of us were in tears almost instantly.  I remember being on the road with my Mom and seeing Poochie bleeding from her mouth and nose.  There was a smell of blood in the air.  She was wimpering.  This is the part of the whole experience where my memory is absolutely terrible.  I remember the car that hit Poochie speeding up as if to hit her on purpose, and then when doing so speeding off and never stopping.  My Mom however a few years later told me that was wrong.  She couldn't say whether or not the car sped up at the mailboxes or not, but she knew that the guy who was driving the car stopped.  I think the confusion started because he slowed, then drove a bit, and parked his car off the side of the road.  I don't remember this because I was focused on Poochie the whole time.  Anyway, in my mind a starnger stopped and helped.  In reality it was the person who had hit Poochie.  He looked over the situation and knew it was grave.  He offered to take the dying Poochie into the woods, and dispose of her.  Which my Mom agreed to.  I remember the shovel he sued, it had a very wide blade,and a broken handle.  He was gone for a few minutes and then returned.  He said he buried her, she had died on the walk up the path.  He said he placed a heavy rock over the grave, so as to keep other animals out.  He told her that he picked a spot that was right outside of a fenceline.  I am not sure what else was said or how long he stayed.  I do know that the incident made an impression on me, that changed my life a great deal. 

Although the fence row is gone now, for the most part, the large rock is easy to find, as long as there is no snow and it's not too late in the summer.  Now that spring is here, and the snow is gone for the most part, I'll have to make a trip home to the parents, and then walk up the path behind the barn, and try to find that large rock, that marks the  grave of the first and most beloved pet I had.