Letter.

If you haven't already read about Skindog, go here first.

If you have read about Skindog and would like to know more, look below for a picture of me at five years old holding my flighty companion:

You may also enjoy perusing the letter my father sent regarding the circumstances surrounding our temporary adoption of Skindog:

On the morning of September 14th 1995 Hurricane Marilyn entered the waters of the Lesser Antilles as a category 3 hurricane and churned westward through Pillsbury Sound  making landfall on the east shore of St. Thomas late that night.

With winds of 170 mph Marilyn laid waste to much of the island, including our little mountainside house in Estate Mandahl on the islands north side.  Having evacuated to your Grandparents house on higher ground, with little more than a suitcase, we spent a sleepless night enduring the wrath  of the storm. The morning sun revealed utter devastation, denuded trees, and a blighted landscape.

Many families lost their homes and all their possessions and were forced to evacuate the island; many leaving behind pets. I believe little skindog was one of these. Several mornings after the storm, as I was loading my truck in preparation for a day of road clearing to reach our house, I saw what I assumed was a sick cat skittering up your Grandparents driveway. It was such a disturbing site that I called your mom to come out and see. With you in tow, your mom and I approached the pathetic creature, and as I was trying to figure out the best way to dispatch it and spare it further suffering, you scooped it up. Horror. I lunged for it, but you held tight, and despite my well reasoned argument  why this hairless intruder was a potential threat to all of us, you held tight.

Your mom and I spent the rest of the day using our full arsenal of Dr. Spock and pop psychology to bring you around to our way of thinking-you didn't budge.  I promised to get you a cat-not interested.  I desperately tried to understand-you'd never expressed the slightest interest in a dog- why? Why this hideous little dog. What did you see in it? As it turned out, your little five year mind had calculated that while all the other lost dogs on the island would likely enjoy good odds of being taken in, no one was going to give aid to pathetic little skindog. 

In the end you simply wore us down and skindog came to live with us-outside of course.

Why skindog? Because when I first saw it I said; eww, it's a skin dog! 

I believe he stayed with us for a month or so and, as the island settled into reconstruction and people began returning, skindog just up and left. I assumed his owners returned and he made his way back home. 

And no, I didn't kill him.

Hope this helps.

Love you,  D

Anyway, that's the true story of Skindog without the embellishment of my five-year old memory.