My father was a secular man who loved his dogs. So we begin on a Sunday with a couple of cromulent items harvested from the WWW.
My father was born Oct 13, 1931. Only a few weeks earlier the first parachuting K9 was deployed in St Catharines. Quoting sources:
On August 4, 1931, the first parachuting dog successfully reached ground* at the St. Catharines airport. Four-year-old police dog Cal readily climbed aboard a plane with his master, Harold Brooker, a member of the St. Catharines Flying Club. With club engineer David Imrie at the controls, they travelled to a height of 1,800 feet. Cal’s parachute was fastened to the wing of the plane, and the dog leaped into space without hesitation when his name was called and Brooker disappeared over the edge of the wing. Cal made a perfect four-point landing near where Brooker touched down safely.
Cal doing "Downward Dog"
I was curious as to what that looked like. Here's a British Pathe newsreel of a K9 drop circa WWII.
*Read this sentence as many times as you'd like but it's the funniest statement I've seen in a while... "the first parachuting dog successfully reached ground". Here's a tip -anything that is jettisoned from an airplane will successfully reach the ground. It don't stay up there!
