One of the family:
McCarthy, Abigail
ONE OF THE FAMILY ERIC THE UNFORGETTABLE His papers read Aran of Innisfallen or something equally impressive, but we decided at once that "Aran!" shouted from the doorstep would be mistaken for...
...that was turning his show of sympathy into a trick and assaulting his place as a family member...
...It was years later that she admitted to being afraid of that horse...
...When one family member brought a cat home from college, the cat had to be fed and sheltered in a closed room to be safe from him...
...Contemplating it, we can learn about the giving and receiving of care, friendship, even love, about changing, aging, and dying- about how things are for living beings on this earth...
...Eric also reacted-possibly to a tone in the voice-when any one of us mentioned unfriendly adversaries...
...He bestowed his affection on us all and perceived others as our friends...
...Thinking of Eric now, I realize that his life with all its stages was encapsulated within our longer ones...
...The subjects range from the health-giving aspects of pets for the elderly to the serious speculations of sci-entists now willing to admit that there may be individuated personality even in the lower species of mammals...
...Nevertheless, his going was mourned by the ten-year-old...
...He would chase a ball or fetch a thrown stick, but he let us know when he was bored...
...He was affected when there was sadness in the family-so much so that he one time fell against the wall and slid down into a semi-stupor...
...Obedience school had little effect on Eric...
...Not that Eric cared or noticed...
...So we called him Eric, a masculine name and suitable,for the dog of a family with Minnesota roots...
...The next year, although Eric looked for them, both dog and kitten were gone...
...In his youth he found his own amusements...
...To heel on order, or to stay, was simply beneath his dignity...
...shouted from the doorstep would be mistaken for "Erin," which sounded too feminine for an outsize boxer...
...Then he adopted a kitten, a present from our caretaker...
...He emitted throaty growls and little snap-ping barks...
...From the beginning it was apparent that he thought of himself as another member of the family...
...Certainly there are mysteries in the history of man and animal...
...No amount of training or gentling had been able to wean that dog from his attack instincts...
...The kitten, willing to play, would feint escape and Eric would bring it back tenderly until they both fell asleep, the kitten between Eric's big paws...
...He remained affec-tionate but, like a human being at the same time of life, he became more insis-tent about his needs, beset with ills, in need of care, and, at the last, suffered so that we could not begrudge his going...
...They would race and tumble about until one or the other tired and Eric came back for food and rest...
...He would worry it, shake it furiously, launch it down the driveway, and hurl himself after it in barking chase, catch it, trot back to his base triumphant-ly and begin again...
...His belated springtime was over...
...He waited each morning for his new friend to vault our picket fence...
...And there was no doubt that his was a unique animal personality if ever there was one...
...Eric shared our lives for almost seven-ty dog years-a very long life for a dog of his breed...
...Other animals were not to be tolerated...
...perhaps it was a canine mid-life crisis in which he decided that he had missed some things in life...
...Only a puppy then, Eric was meant to replace the Weimaraner in the affections of the fami-ly's youngest...
...Perhaps he was affected by the imperma-nence of human relationships as, one by one, the young went off to college...
...After he had treed the grocery man (on the kitchen countertop), torn the cleaning man's slacks, and destroyed the Welcome Lady's purse, we had to exile him to a friend's farm...
...We returned it and our friends got used to his drooling attention (boxers do drool...
...For most of his life Eric had no interest in other dogs...
...Eric has been much in my mind of late because of the ever-increasing interest in the relationship between animals and hu-man beings...
...In maturity he was exquisitely tuned to family feelings...
...Instead of trying to kill it, he pawed at it gently, then picked it up by the head and carried it into the living room and lay down with it before the fireplace...
...But he hated it when anyone tried to make him demonstrate this for outsiders...
...Newspapers and periodicals are full of articles on the way we share the planet...
...When that was de-stroyed, we got another, and then another, until suddenly he decided he ' was too mature for that kind of play...
...Eric would not demean himself by learning tricks, although he was willing to please within limits...
...The veterinarian diagnosed acute depression and prescribed tran-quilizers...
...He adopted certain rules of behavior that he evidently thought appropriate to his place in the family: coming when called, submitting to a leash in order to walk with us, reluc-tantly staying behind when it became clear that his company was not wanted...
...the develop-ment of friendship between dog and man is one of these...
...He joined the family after we had had rather casual relationships with a series of dogs who came and went-a beagle, a springer, a Weimaraner...
...The two friendships lasted all summer...
...So, rather than hers alone, Eric became everyone's dog...
...He ignored them or attack-ed them as intruders if they came into his launching himself through the screen door to chase a lofty pair of high-bred setters being walked by...
...At any rate, he, who had never tolerated another dog, wel-comed a neighbor's half-mongrel, halfhound, into our yard on Cape Cod...
...He took over a skate board, for example, as his person-al toy...
...He began to lapse into old age...
...Even today, more than a dozen years after his death, old friends reminisce with us about him in such a way that newcomers to the group assume that he was another child or a close relative...
...He shocked and terrified us one time by throwing himself at the throat of a horse on which our youngest was mounted...
...In his later years Eric began to change...
Vol. 116 • March 1989 • No. 5
