The first dog I remember was the black Lab who lived on Nash Road. Her name was Ebony. Someone had thoughtfully placed a small sign on her collar which read: “PLEASE DO NOT FEED ME.” We knew, of course, that Ebony was not the author of this note, because she would eat just about anything. I recall once being reduced to tears by the fact that she ate chicken bones out of our trash.
My parents had warned me to never feed chicken bones to dogs because, unlike steak bones, chicken bones would splinter in a dog's mouth and—upon swallowing—become lodged in the throat, thus driving the dog insane with agony, and the swelling would close up the poor thing's throat, and the dog would die a horrible, lingering death, and I'd go to hell forever for doing such a thing.
I remember that my parents folded pretty quick and did their best to convince me that Ebony was in no danger from ingesting our deadly trash.

I only remember one story about Tarragon, the Great Dane who lived across the street from us in Michigan. One day he stole and ate an entire raw roast from off the counter while his owner's back was turned.
Ten seconds flat. Bones and all.
Mrs.^_______ used to say she worried that if she ever died while her husband was away, they'd never find a body.

Shortly after we moved back to Massachusetts, we were surprised one afternoon by a dog barking at our back porch door to get in. It was Briar, our next-door neighbors’ English setter. This was how we met our neighbors. Mrs. G^_______ told us, “Oh, she's always done that. If you don't want to, don't let her in.” We quickly became great friends with Briar and her parents. Of course, this was a dream come true for me and my dog-starved sister. All the benefits of dog and none of the headaches! Okay, well, she did shed like crazy. . . and there was the time she ate an entire stick of butter off the picnic table.
Except where food was concerned, Briar had a dignified old-lady demeanor, preferring to walk down a path or along the street, rather than track across a wet or snowy lawn. Once, she waited for Dad to finish shoveling snow off the walk before she would leave the front porch. Whenever we asked how old Briar was, the response was always “Nine, ten years old. . .” Dad used to call her the Jack Benny of dogs.
Briar was so obedient, sometimes Mrs. G^_______ would use her as a messenger, tying things (cards, gifts, balloons, newspaper clippings, food) to her collar, then sending her over to our house. As the years progressed, the cargo got more and more elaborate. Briar bore it all with a slightly humiliated, slightly bemused, mostly condescending air.

I was in my sophomore year at college when my parents finally decided to get a dog. Briar had been dead for a few years, they missed her, and decided to get a dog like her. Not an English setter, though–too much fur, too much shedding. So, they decided to get a dog that—like Briar—was white with black spots, but that—unlike Briar—had short fur, because short fur wouldn't shed.
They decided to get a Dalmatian.
Now, as anyone who's ever had a Dalmatian knows, not only do they shed like mad, but their fur is slightly hooked at one end, thus somehow enabling it to work its way deep into fabrics and, once there, attach itself to the fibers on a sub-atomic level. You can't get Dalmatian fur off of anything. And, because it's both black and white, it shows up on everything.
But my parents didn't know that at the time, and so got a Dal anyway. Because the got her from a breeder, she has one of those weird long breeder-type names. But that's not what we call her. She isn't show-quality because of the all-black ear; Dals should be spots only—no big patches. It's darn cute, though.