Calico's legacy lives on to this day

She lived a full life, representative of her era: She ate a lot, was promiscuous and stayed out late. Yet she was beloved.

Today would have been her 50th birthday. She was gone too soon.

I write, of course, about Calico, my childhood dog. I don't know her death date, which is lost to history (sometime in early 1980). I also don't know how she ended up in our family, another story lost to history. But I know her birth date: May 3, 1965. Fifty years ago today.

Calico Stanhope was a beagle, part of the generation of dogs whose status in society was elevated by Snoopy of "Peanuts" fame. I've seen pictures of her as a puppy, when she was frisky and small. By the time I was old enough to remember, she disappeared from family photos, appearing only in shadows, a family version of the Loch Ness Monster. (In that era, adults didn't waste film on the family dog. Film was expensive to develop!)

Calico was the beloved dog of my childhood, but to my friends, she was an obese, wart-covered, snorting hound who never missed an opportunity to hump their legs.

She loved eating garbage. In the days before you had to leash a dog – I lived in a rural community, where there still is likely no leash law – Calico wandered the neighborhood. That meant that garbage night was often Mardi Gras for her – an opportunity to take advantage of mysteriously tipped-over cans and enjoy the spoils of coffee grounds, egg shells and other treasures. Like a generation of Americans that followed, she learned that if you eat garbage, you get fat.

She was definitely portly. Her belly was inches off the ground and sometimes the warts on her paws nearly rubbed her stomach. Her weight made it tough for her to breathe, causing her to snort when she walked. My friends often thought she was growling at them, which they assumed was as bad as it would get. Wrong on both counts.

I loved Calico, despite her bad habits, which included a tendency to sit on the lawn in front of my bedroom window at night and howl, then respond to her echo. My sisters loved her, too.

Unfortunately, as much as she was loved, she gave love. Uncomfortably so.

Calico was "fixed" at an early age (Dogs undoubtedly don't consider that being "fixed."), but had no qualms familiarizing herself with the legs of my friends. The 10-year-olds who had earlier been terrorized by her growling (grunting) would suddenly find her attached to their legs, fully enjoying the sexual revolution of the 1970s.

"Just shake her off," I would tell them, unaware of how inappropriate it was.

Calico's later years saw her mellow. She slept more, ate more, and kept going. She lived past her 14th birthday (98 for dogs) as an indulgent, gluttonous, oversexed dog.

She was the canine Keith Richards, a dog who overcame all obstacles to survive.

We finally had her "put down" when the entire family left on a two-week vacation and determined that her quality of life was terrible, which sounds much harsher now than it did then. In fact, it sounds like we killed her so we could enjoy a vacation. Could that be right? Nevermind.

Regardless, her legendary life ended.

She has been gone for 35 years, but her influence endures.

Whenever a dog eats from the garbage or barks at something invisible or wanders a neighborhood, it is paying tribute to Calico. Anytime a dog familiarizes itself with the leg of a terrified fourth-grader, it's a tribute to Calico.

She lived slow, died old and left a hideous corpse.

But what a legacy!

Brad Stanhope is a former Daily Republic editor. Reach him at bradstanhope@hotmail.com.