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personal things), and there was really not enough left over to allow us to afford luxuries. Certainly an expensive purebred dog would have fit in the category of luxury—yet we always had them.
    One of my uncles later told me that my father bought most of our dogs with straight labor, rather than money. Dad was a wonderful craftsman and could build or repair just about anything. Our dogs were usually purchased in exchange for his doing some kind of construction or repair job for people. This involved working weekends and some evenings with the only payment being a puppy when the job was completed. He never explained the circumstances to us, and if we asked he would justsay, “The dog is here with us now and that is all that matters.”
    Penny may have been different, since when my father placed the towel-wrapped puppy in my arms, he announced, “Her name is Penny because that is what I paid for her. She is a boxer. Give her a life.” Since he usually left the naming of the dog to the son who would care for her, this was a clear difference, and although he never offered any further explanation, it seemed to matter to my father.
    My brother Dennis looked at the puppy and observed, “Her face is so flat she looks like she walked into a wall. That’s one ugly dog!”
    My mother also peered over my shoulder and laughed, “She is so ugly that she is actually cute!”
    Penny would never grow up to have the classic look of the breed. She was somewhat smaller and lighter than the norm, and her legs would not be quite as long and elegant as her body mass required. She was the classic fawn color of a boxer, though, with a white chest and white “socks,” or paws. Her face was a dark mask that shadowed the area around her eyes and muzzle, although it was not quite as square and jowly as those of show dogs. But her dark eyes were set in a perpetually friendly, attentive look.
    I thought she was beautiful. I got down on my knees, unwrapped the towel, and put her on the floor. She immediately began to sniff around, checking each person in turn, and then began inspecting the room.
    I called to her in as happy a voice as I could produce, “Penny, come!” and she immediately trotted over to me and shoved her dark face in my hand. She then sat and looked at me with those dark eyes, and if people could melt because of the warmth of a look of love, I would have turned into a puddle at that moment.
    Disaster struck a month later. Our house was on a residential street in West Philadelphia, but it got more traffic than most such streets because it was used by many people as a shortcut to bypass two busy intersections. The people who used it that way were obviously impatient and tended to travel at higher than normal speeds for such a narrow lane. This made the street too hazardous for the neighborhood children to play in.
    One day my mother was outside talking to the woman who lived next door. Somehow, Penny got out of the house, and wandered between two parked cars and into the street where she was hit by a speeding car. Fortunately, she was clipped by it andnot actually run over, but she flew several yards and landed in an unconscious heap. The car did not stop, and the driver may not have even seen her emerge and might not have known that he had nearly killed my small, young dog.

    My mother rushed Penny to a veterinarian, who treated her immediately and later said that if the puppy had been older and had received an impact like that she probably would have been crippled for life. As it was, he was able to patch her up so that all that was left physically was a slight wobble in her hips that gave her a gait that looked much like someone who has had too much alcohol to drink but is trying to hide the fact by walking as gracefully as possible.
    Penny’s greatest injury, however, was psychological, for the accident left her with an intense fear of streets and oncoming cars. Taking Penny on walks was nearly impossible. She would not step