A truly great dog – a companionable and indispensable dog – is a rare thing, a freak of nature, an accident. You can’t breed for it, you can’t choose one from a litter, you can’t buy one or rescue one knowingly. Great dogs happen along, they appear out of the blue, sometimes you find them, sometimes they find you. We all love our dogs and think they are wonderful, but if I am being honest, I have to say there have been only a few great dogs in my life, dogs that truly faithful, trustworthy, noble and loving. Like human beings, all dogs are not equal.

I remember my first great dog, Sam the mulish bassett hound (they are all that way). Sam was impervious to training, instruction or the wishes of humans. Every night when I was very small,  he crawled into my bed, and bit by he would stretch out and push me  until I fell off the bed and onto the floor. If I tried to get back into bed, he would growl and snap at me and I spent many nights on the floor with blankets wrapped over me. My mother whaled Sam with a rolled-up newspaper every time he got up on the sofa – she could see him looking out the window when she pulled into the driveway – and every day he was there, ready to take his punishment, indifferent to it. Sam was a hero to me.

My mother was a kitchen tyrant and whenever she would cook a turkey, brisket or juicy steak, Sam would wait until it got to the table, then make a lunge for it. I remember one Thanksgiving when Sam reached up over the table, pulled an entire turkey off of its roasting dish and tried to drag it away across the new living room carpet. My mother tackled him, and the two of them (three including the hot and moist turkey) ended up in a brawl across the carpet and into the kitchen.  Sam ended up in the basement for a week after that, and on his first day back, he went after some brisket. He was a great dog. Only later did I realize how much she loved that dog. When we moved to Atlantic City, she drove him over to a neighbor’s and left him there. Years later I found out that he was so disconsolate and then aggressive towards his new owners that he was put down. My mother never forgave herself.

King, our free-wheeling and adventurous German Shepherd, was also a great dog. My father let him out in the morning and then let him after dinner (he was not allowed in the house, only the basement). King came home every now and then with the pants of the mailman, dragged our neighbor’s garbage all over the block, impregnated any number of dogs in the neighborhood, and lay in wait for the milkman, who would open his door a crack, run for the door and rush back to his truck. Most days, not all, he made it. This was, of course, before lawyers rose up and took over the lives of us and our dogs.

Rose was a great dog, courageous and dutiful and invaluable. There were others, but I now have another great dog, Red. He is my constant companion. This morning, he came with me to the dentist and sat under my chair while my teeth were cleaned. There are not so many lawyers in the country, so there is still some freedom for dogs. Red is essential to the running of the farm and the perfect companion for me. He vanishes when I am writing (he is under my desk), and understands the bells that time my meditation. He meditates with me, sleeps at the foot of my bed – on the floor –  and defines much of my life. I did not buy or breed him, of course, he was brought to me by an angel, Dr. Karen Thompson, who knew she had a great dog on her hands and wanted a rich and full life for him.

You never know where a great dog will come from. I am always open to getting a great dog, and I have been fortunate. I already have many memories of Red, one that sticks in my mind is the recent morning when freezing rain and snow were falling and I had bring the sheep and lie down, and he was so still that when I came into the house to work I forget him out there and when I went out looking for him two hours later (when I am writing, the world disappears), he was just in the spot where I had left him, soaking wet, covered in snow, willing to endure cold, snow and freezing rain rather than hurt my feelings or displease me.

I never forget a great dog, and my wish for every dog lover in the world is that they experience one.