When I was 9, we went to some farm where the farmers had a bunch of puppies in an enclosed pen that they called beagles. They were selling them at a price my dad considered worthwhile, but they only sort of resembled beagles. Dad was intent on picking the "quiet" one, which was actually the anti-social one that all the other pups seemed to ignore. Good job, dad.

I named him "Sparky" after my recent school assembly that included a fire dog.

Anyway, he wasn't so bad, although he did fail obedience school. Last in his class. He took mostly to my mother, because she was the one who fed him, and wow did he like to eat. He was fed nutritionally deficient Purina kibble, which not only made him fat and diabetic, but to beg to go out into the backyard at 3am just to eat his own feces. I remember hearing my dad curse about "that damned dog" and mom letting him outside. Nobody seemed to realize something was very wrong there. No connections were made. He turned rather grumpy as he grew up. The dog, I mean. He turned fat and lazy, and was not exactly friendly, except to mom, who fed him.

Anyway, we all drove to Florida on vacation, bringing Sparky with us. At some point, my parents realized the error of their ways, deciding to drop him off at a kennel for the remainder of our trip.

The deal was made, and the kennel worker who was a kind black male, came out and called Sparky to him. "Come on, Sparky!" He looked back at us cautiously, and with our approving facial expressions, walked toward the black kennel worker.

We left him there for two weeks. When we returned to get him, he sat in my mother's arms in the car, howling to her for half an hour.

From that moment on, any time he encountered a black person, the hair on his back would stand up, and he would growl and snarl at them.

Anyway, I got older and moved out, and later my parents had him put down when they decided they wanted new carpeting for the house.