My wife and I watched “Marley and Me” last night, a movie about a family who loved a large and somewhat clownish dog. The film brought back memories of the dogs that have been in my life.

There have been five dogs I have known personally, and one cat. Just like Marley, each of these animals came into my life when they were puppies. Well, the cat was a kitten. Like Marley, each of these creatures wormed its way into the hearts and lives of my family and me. And, just like Marley, each of these animals grew old and died.

Pal was a little lost puppy when Jack, the man who later became my brother-in-law, found him wondering along a road in Windsor, Ontario. Jack called several common doggie names, but the only one the pup responded to was “Pal.” There was no collar or identification on the dog, so Jack brought him home to give to his girlfriend’s little brother. Me. I was seven.

I am not certain my mother was thrilled with the idea, but Jack gave Pal to me and he became my dog. He was white with a brown spot here or there, a terrier of some type. But Pal became my, well, my pal. I played with him, took him for walks on a leash and had him beside me as I read a book, something I often did as a child.

Mother would not let him in the house, so Dad built a house for him and set it in the back yard next to the garage in front of the fence that ran along the alley. I doubt that Pal ever spent more than a few seconds in that house, though. In the summer he preferred to sleep beside the house, and in the winter, mother’s soft heart caused her to readily agree to let Pal sleep in the basement next to the warm coal-burning furnace.

Pal preferred to be on top of the house, not in it. He quickly learned how to jump on top of the flat roof and stand up leaning on the fence so he could look up and down the alley at the variety of service vehicles and humans who made their way each day. His favorite was the junk man who made his living picking up one man’s junk and turning it into another man’s treasure.

The junk man had a coal-black horse that pulled his wagon and its wares through the alleys of the city. Pal could hear the approaching creak of the wagon and the clanging of the metal objects piled on it long before any of us could. He would immediately scramble on top of his house and stretch his neck out as far as he could to see down the alley. A low grumble would come from his throat as he searched for his target. As soon as he caught sight of the black horse, the barking would begin. Irrational. Incessant. Annoying. The barking would increase in pitch and frequency as the horse approached and die away as the horse departed. As long as he could see the horse, Pal kept up the barking.

The horse ignored him. The old junk man ignored him. And as soon as the horse was gone out of sight, Pal would jump down from his house and go back to sleep or whatever else he was doing before he heard the wagon.

One time I decided to take Pal for a ride in the basket attached to the handle bars of my bike. I lifted him up and set him inside the wire basket. He was not comfortable, however, because the wires of the basket were set too far apart for him to get any solid footing. He rewarded my offer of a ride by urinating on my bike and me.

When I was ten, my family moved from Windsor to the Detroit area across the river. This was, of course, an international move. I don’t know if Dad had to get special papers for Pal or not. I just know that Pal rode on my lap across the Ambassador Bridge without creating an international incident. His new home was the basement and the back yard of our new home in Lincoln Park, Michigan. We did not bring Pal’s house from Windsor. He never used it as a house, and our new back yard did not have an alley running adjacent to it, and there was no junk man’s horse for Pal to aggravate with his barking.

I must confess I was not as close to Pal in our new home as I was in our old. I was older, and had other interests besides the little white dog in our back yard. I still petted him and played with him, but I no longer had him by my side as much. Some days, school days especially, I didn’t see Pal at all.

Then one evening, about dusk, I think in the spring, Pal managed to get out of the fenced-in back yard. Perhaps someone left the gate opened. I could not find him. I walked up and down Farnham Street looking for him, calling his name. Dad got in his car and drove around several blocks looking for him. He was no where to be seen.

In the movie about Marley, one of the children comments that he read that dogs sometimes sense when they are going to die and they run away to be alone when death comes. I do not know if that is true, but we never did find Pal or any trace of him. We knew nothing of his birth or early days; we knew nothing about the end of his life.

But, even after all these sixty-some years that have passed, I still remember Pal.