Strange dog episode

In Georgia we lived next door to a terrific family, the Wetheringtons. The dad, Phil, was around my dad's age--at that time he was a captain in the Air Force--and they had four kids around my age and my sister's age. Our families got together frequently for cookouts, pizza nights, camping trips, and so on. Once an old dog, some sort of big Lab or Golden, wandered into the odd ravine between our yards and lay down to die. We kids brought it food and water, but it knew what it was there for and ignored us. Our folks were concerned, so they called people in the neighborhood to try to find out whose dog it was, but had no luck. So after a day or two my dad and Phil quietly shot the dog (they must have done it when we were at school or asleep, because I don't remember the sound of the shot) with Phil's Air Force sidearm. Then they buried it in the woods behind our houses. Two weeks later, a family arrived looking for the dog, and Phil told them that he was sorry; they'd tried to find the owners but had had to put the dog down. And the family dug that dog up and took it home with them. This says a lot about dog owners or central Georgia, or both.

Eating the dog food

When we were little my sister and parents and I lived in central Georgia, where my dad worked for the Air Force. We had a Boxer named Bo, who lived tied up out back, though we let him into the house quite a bit. My dad fed Bo every night, carrying the dog's meal down to him in a big plastic pail, and my dad really enjoyed creating a big dinner in the pail--he'd stir in crunchy dog food, table scraps, a cup or so of warm water, and any meat drippings that were handy. He'd also put some sort of vegetable on top more or less as an experiment, and the dog rarely failed to leave whatever it was--tomato wedge, lettuce leaf, a few ripe olives--sitting alone and clean in the bottom of the food pail. Once as a treat for Bo my dad bought these multicolored doggie doughnuts, and they looked and smelled pretty good, so my sister and I ate some, and they weren't bad. That led us to try out all the other dog food, and it was truly awful.