Barney: Mayor (and beagle) of Edgartown

Barney the Beagle, who spent 
every one of his seventeen summers on the Vineyard, became the unofficial mayor of Edgartown. He was a regular on the sidewalks of the town, starting with a 7 a.m. walk to the 
harbor. He’d seek out drippings from Mad Martha’s, the Ice Cream and Candy Bazaar, and Scoops (he once snatched all the ice cream clean off the cone of a small child). At 8 a.m. Edgartown Hardware opened and Barney was there begging Jonathan for a Milkbone, then crossed the street to the Dukes County Savings Bank where his remonstrations brought glee to one and all, and Snausages to Barney.
    
The bluefish of dogs, the beagle 
is never satisfied. After the bank, 
Barney would cross back over Main and head north on Summer Street to Penny at the Martha’s Vineyard Boys and Girls Club Second Hand Store for bacon strips and lots of attention.
    
Barney loved evening walks to 
the Edgartown Lighthouse, schmoozing along the way with Dominique, 
a beautiful German shepherd owned by Doug and Lorna Garron. He’d sit atop the stone wall with one of his family members and socialize with 
vacationers.
    
Barney had the boundless joy 
and happy spirit of a child on vacation, which for him was every day 
on Martha’s Vineyard.
– June Starke, Edgartown

Angus: The singing, driving private eye

The best Island dog I ever knew 
is my dog Angus. He is a Boston 
terrier, with a white fur collar, with 
a black dot on it.
    
My parents looked in the newspaper, and they saw a lot of puppies had been born. They rushed off-Island, and this is how they picked Angus: my mom picked up his brother and my dad picked up Angus. Angus licked him in the face, and that’s how they chose him. Angus was the dog in the litter who protected the runt. My parents carried him home in a picnic basket on the ferry. When they got home, I said, “Ohhhhh! Puppyyyyyy!” At first, my little sister thought we rented a dog.
    
He’s very funny and soft. He loves black raspberry ice cream from Ben and Bill’s. Angus can do a lot of fun things. If I hold a stick above my head, he’ll jump and get it. He can also steer a car. He does this on Chappaquiddick. He’s better than me at driving.
    
If you rub his cheeks, he can sing – the national anthem, “Happy Birthday,” “Deck the Halls.” Secretly, his name is Dr. Franklin Fleemer, and he’s a worldwide secret agent. You can see he wears a tuxedo, like James Bond.
    
But the best thing is that he wants to cuddle no matter what. If you get a cut, he’ll lick it about twenty times to make it feel better. And he doesn’t pee on you unless he’s really really excited.
– Ian MacCormack, age ten, Oak Bluffs

The West Chop Night Riders

Gunder and Griselda belonged 
to my stepmother, Connie. I quickly became attached to the two rascals when I met Connie in 1972. They were Mutt and Jeff in appearance and in personality: Gunder was a white, long-haired English setter and, like most purebreds (dogs and people, for that matter), what he lacked in intelligence, he made up for in exuberance and friendliness; Griselda was a small, black, wire-haired “whodunit” – smart, wily, and wary of most people.    
    
When apart, the dogs behaved well and stayed close to home in Mink Meadows. Together, however, they took on the scruples of Bonnie and Clyde, and I soon nicknamed them the Night Riders. They were not 
allowed to roam during daylight hours, as the chances were high of Gunder suffering a citizen’s arrest 
and impoundment by Mrs. Tuttle, 
the self-appointed dog officer of West Chop, for offenses against property and pets too odious to mention here. Griselda, never one to get caught, would return home alone after her pal’s incarceration, soon to be followed by a stern phone call from Tuttle and a rundown of the most recent additions to Gunder’s lengthy rap sheet. Our only alternative for exercise was to run them after dark and hope for the best. As we opened the gate to their pen each evening, they would shoot out in a blur and charge down the road 
at breakneck speed. After an hour or two, both dogs would arrive at the back door, exhausted, and smelling of whatever adventures they had found – marsh muck, skunks, or worse. We tried to avoid runs on the evenings 
before trash pickup; if we forgot, the following morning Golf Club Road could look like Sherman’s march to the sea, requiring numerous stops to clean up trash strewn across the road.
    
Gunder was more of a lover than 
a fighter, but if the odds were right, meaning the potential adversary was no more than half his size, Gunder would occasionally assert his dominance. I recall a walk I took along the beach with the two dogs one fall day when we encountered a small mixed terrier which turned tail and ran at 
the sight of my gang. Gunder and Griselda gave chase and quickly disappeared around the bend. Within ten seconds both dogs came flying back, their tails between their legs, followed by the terrier and three very large and angry barking companions. My dogs shot straight over the dunes for home while the four beach masters stopped short, gave a final bark of “Take that!” and proudly pranced back, happy to have reclaimed their rightful territory.                
– Gil Sanborn, Vineyard Haven

Jesse Bell

Jesse Bell was named Jezebel when I got her, but that made her sound like a tramp, so I changed it. She spent her days walking down Music Street, greeting everyone with a smile. Jesse was afraid of thunderstorms, though, and would jump through windows to get out during a storm. The Weather Channel was our favorite TV show.

Jesse died in November 2003, a few days after surgery. Her brother Alex – a cat – died a month later from a broken heart.
– Betsy Burmeister, Vineyard Haven

Amos

The first owners of Amos R.W. Murphy, a lovable mutt my husband insists was mostly beagle, had high hopes that he’d become a hunting dog. Though Amos was proficient at flushing rabbits, it became clear that hunting wasn’t his forte when he 
disappeared for days after a gun was fired on his first rabbit hunt. For his next owners, he failed to become a working farm dog – he preferred sleeping on couches.
    
So Amos came to my in-laws’ home at eighteen months of age and, finally, to his claim to fame. After building a vacation home in Chilmark in the early 1970s, they decided to forgo their names in the phone 
directory and listed Amos’s instead.
    
Amos died twenty years ago,
 but his phone listing continues to confound and amuse our friends 
and relatives.
- Carolyn Murphy, Chilmark

Windy

Windy is a wash-ashore greyhound. She’s now thirteen, retired from 
racing days, and always ready to do anything we do – including washing her feet before taking a swim in the pool!
    
When the weather’s bad, she stays inside and plays checkers with our granddaughter Samantha.
– Nancy Billings, Oak Bluffs