My Dad was a tough man to live with. He was volatile and unpredictable. He wasn’t a big man, but he could intimidate men twice his size. His soft spot, however, was animals. We had a pet parakeet when I was little, and the bird would ride around on Dad’s shoulder, chirping sweet nothings in his ear. That bird loved him and only him.

Dad would take us for rides throughout the countryside around Sherman and Clymer and one year he stopped to show me the newly hatched polliwogs in a large mud hole. He explained how they would turn into frogs one day, if the mud hole didn’t dry up too soon and they were lucky. Another time he stopped to scoop a snapping turtle out of the road before someone ran over it. But the most bizarre animal Dad ever felt for was Jigs.

Jigs was a junk-yard dog, chained by day, turned loose by night to patrol the chain-link fenced lot, but Jigs was old and no longer the vicious deterrent needed to protect the junk cars, so his owner prepared to shoot him. That’s when my Dad stepped in. He couldn’t bear the thought of Jigs just being shot and discarded like a bag of garbage. Dad put Jigs in the back seat of his car and drove from North East, Pa., to Ripley with Jigs’ head looming over the front seat next to Dad’s ear, softly growling deep in his throat.

I was three years old when Jigs came to live with us. He was a big German Shepard, dirty, oily, and totally untrained for domestic living. I was told I rode Jigs like a pony, but I don’t remember that. I was told my father approached me and raised his voice one day and Jigs got up, stood between me and my father, bared his teeth and growled menacingly. Dad backed off.

What I do remember is napping with Jigs in the sunny enclosed front porch. There may even be a photograph somewhere but I have a very distinct picture in my mind. Jigs would curl up in the sun and I would lie down next to him, my head on his rib cage, and we’d both fall asleep.

One day Jigs was gone, the only explanation was that he was old and it was “his time.” I didn’t know what that meant, but I missed that big, stinky dog. He was my buddy, my playmate, my protector. If there is a dog heaven I hope to see Jigs again at the Rainbow Bridge. I don’t believe I ever told him how much I loved him.

Robyn Near is a Ripley resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com