Glad you enjoyed Mac's story, Peace. ;-)

I'll add my thanks, Michael - I love swapping dog and cat stories.

I've got one more, a bit sad because it is just an old memory, and there are old black and white photos with deckled edges in the family album back home of the dog in the story.

When I was a kid, a Labrador dog looked a lot different than what's called a Lab today. I don't know where these modern short-legged barrel shaped Labs came from, but they ain't what a Nova Scotian would have called a Lab in the fifties and sixties.

Joe was a proper Lab, almost as tall as a Newfoundland dog, with long legs and a big, but not barrel shaped, body. He belonged to one of my uncles. Around 1955, in Cape Breton, we had the biggest snowfall I remember ever seeing. It covered the cherry trees in the back yard, blocked the light from the downstairs windows on the North side of the house, and created the biggest, highest snowbanks I've ever seen. I think that was the happiest winter of Joe's life, because he dearly loved snow.

I was a little afraid of dogs then, being four years old, but I was never afraid of Joe. Whenever he visited, which was often, he stayed outside with me and my little brother. He would stay right by us, snuffling and rolling in the snow, prancing around, and sometimes he'd grap the rope handle on our sled and haul us across the yard, wagging his tail for joy.

Then my uncle moved to Florida, and a year later, my family followed. Poor Joe! We visited my uncle and aunt nearly every weekend the year we lived there, and the only place I ever saw Joe was in their garage, lying quiet on the cool cement floor, trying to escape the heat of a Tampa suburb. I used to go out and sit with him and talk to him about snow.

Florida has its charms, but the ticks and other little evil insects are not among them, so Joe always smelled of whatever my uncle was using for repelling ticks. It was an odd smell.

A few years ago, I was walking in the very wet upland bog near our present home, when my rubber boot must have crushed some plant or moss or lichen. The air filled with a sharp clean strong odour - the exact scent of Joe in his Florida garage. I almost cried, the memory of Joe was so clear and immediate.

I wasn't able to identify which plant it was, and I haven't found it since - just an occasional faint hint in the air that always makes me remember Joe, the very first dog that played with me.