The value of pets in the Civil War

[L Verge]

My parents had a young American spitz when I was born - my mother always swore that Dad married her just to get the puppy! Butch actually taught me how to walk, according to his adoring "parents." When I began to crawl, he would walk over and stand in front of me. His tail had been clipped, and I would grab onto his stub tail, stand up, and he would walk very slowly ahead of me.

This will probably turn some of our harder readers away, but Butch died when I was in the fourth grade. Dad was still in the Air Force, and when he told his men about the death, they made a coffin for Butch. Dad brought it home, and Mom and my grandmother lined it with material from an old velvet evening gown and placed one of my baby crib pillows in it. Butch was then buried as my grandmother read the Episcopal burial service from the Book of Common Prayer.

Such a thing never happened again, but I have cried so many tears over beloved pets. They love you because you are you. My father used to say that he never trusted a person who did not like animals.