life | Robin McClellan

Tag Archives: life

April 12, 2026 · 8:17 am

Reflections on my Life and Dogs

My life is divided into 5 volumes, each defined by the dog in my life.

Susy came into my life when I was six and saw me through primary school. She was an outdoor farm dog, spending the summers getting fat on the woodchucks she expertly hunted. And she was the epitome of a young boy’s dog, running and playing with me with devotion that breaks my heart, remembering.

My Black Lab Odin arrived in 1976, when I was a student at SUNY Potsdam. He attended briefly, but soon got bored with academia and spent his days roaming the village, meeting me later in the afternoon at the Wild Oat, where he knew more people than I did. The time in Madison was the hardest for him, as he was home for long days when I was in the lab, working on not getting my Master’s degree in Zoology. He lived, like all my dogs so far, for 14 years, passing in 1990, at the cabin in Stockholm.

Dr Ys Saranac 1978 cropped — Odin and me in front of Dr. Y’s in Saranac Lake, 1977 or 78.

A few years after that, Rama, a black Golden Retriever (mom was a pure-bred Golden and dad was a traveling man), arrived. We moved to western NY, where he learned to love kittens and bring joy to the world. We returned to Stockholm in 2004, and he passed in the middle of building the house in Stockholm after sharing lunch with the crew.

Rama in Albion, waiting for picnic lunch.

But what’s a new house without a new puppy? Angus was a generous gift from my dear friends, Sandy and Lou Maine. He returned that generosity through his warmth and love for people and dogs. He hosted my doggy day care center, where his sister Mieta, niece Penny, and friends, Gogol and Eli, came many days, to run and play and guard the place.

A very bored Angus on the porch of my family home in Geneseo.

Playing with Danielle’s dog, Dillon, in Albion

Which brings me to the fifth volume, Bran. There is always a space between dogs, an intercanum if you will, where I reflect and adjust to life without them. And then, one day, it’s time. Usually it’s friends who trigger it—Luke and Willy connected me with Rama, and Sandy and Lou with Angus—but this time I took the initiative. Friends from Geneseo (where I grew up) knew of several breeders, and I visited them. I settled on Bran, and the connection was quick. He didn’t whine as we left his parents, siblings, aunts, and uncles, and only complained when I put him in a cardboard box at night. That was solved by moving him to a wire crate, where he could see me.

Each dog in my life has been the right teacher at the right time. They have also reflected me, to some extent. Odin was a macho alpha, and although I didn’t see it at the time, he reflected me better than I’d like to admit. Rama was less so, and I think reflected my increased self-confidence. Angus was confident, too, but also a little less adventurous.

At 71, and Bran at 3, it’s definitely a new volume. Until my late 60s, I felt younger than my years. At about 69, that started to change. And Bran reflects that. He would love to go out and play with me all day, but he’s adapted to my less energetic life. Unlike Susy, who hunted woodchucks relentlessly, deer amble away when he barks, and he was once stood down by a mouse.

I can’t fully articulate what an honor and joy it has been to have these dogs in my life. I have learned so much from them, and they have fed my soul. I only hope that I have been as kind to them as they have been to me.

Happy Holidays! – 2024

Wishing You
the Sun and the Moon
in the New Year

And Joy, too!

I’m starting this letter on Thanksgiving Day. It’s my favorite holiday because it’s less material than other holidays, and it’s about giving thanks, an action that gives me so much joy. I have a lot to give thanks for, and at the top of the list are you, my friends and family.

I’m spending Thanksgiving this year with my cousins, my mother’s sister Clara’s children. Aunt Clara died in October at 101, the last of that generation in my family and one of the few left alive in the world who lived through the Great Depression. In 1937, at 15, she traveled through Germany with my mother and their mother, and they saw Hitler parade through the town they were staying in. Despite, or maybe because of, those experiences, she was always grateful and generous.

This year is the first that I’ve really felt my age. The main lesson aging is teaching me is acceptance. I’m slowly learning to accept the reduction in my capabilities and ask for help. I’m also learning to moderate my ambition. As Christine Lavin sang in “Shining my Flashlight at the Moon,” “Adjust your dreams.” We are very attached to ambition in our culture and feel a need to reach higher each day. The challenge is to find satisfaction in other ways. Quite often, it’s helping or encouraging someone else, but sometimes it’s not doing something. More often these days, I find myself just taking a moment to experience the beauty of the world around me.

Of course, the year has been dominated by the new dog in my life. Having had four of the best dogs in the world, who have all lived 14 years and bookmark the sections of my life, I was a little anxious about how Bran would fare against these pillars of canine society. I’m happy to say that he is faring quite well. Like my previous dogs, he could be more obedient, but I never made that a priority. Instead, I prefer dogs who are responsible, socially adept, and bring joy to the world.

In that regard, Bran has not disappointed. He loves other dogs and people and plays enthusiastically, but chills out and doesn’t beg for attention when I have to shift my focus away from him. Unlike my other dogs, he is not a counter-surfer. It’s almost too good to be true, and now I’m lax about leaving food around, something I’ll regret when some of his more accomplished counter-surfing friends visit.

With that, I’ll wind up and wish you all the best for the holiday season. Be kind, be grateful, and make it a mission to leave everyone you come in contact with happier than they were. I hope this letter has left you happier than when you started reading it.

“I believe compassion to be one of the few things we can practice that will bring immediate and long-term happiness to our lives. I’m not talking about the short-term gratification of pleasures like sex, drugs or gambling (though I’m not knocking them), but something that will bring true and lasting happiness. The kind that sticks.”

― His Holiness the Dalai Lama