The self-taught small boy usually begins with the so-called “dog-paddle.” There his instinct is thoroughly right, and the method is especially valuable for children too young to do much formal practicing.Dog-paddle is the most natural of all strokes, and therefore the easiest of all to learn.
Last week, as the latest escapeedog paddled his way to freedom across the Spandau ship canal, the Grepos machine-pistoled him down with seven slugs. Sinking in mid stream, he became the 58th victim—and the first dog—to die since 1961 while trying to enter West Berlin from the East German democratic workers’ paradise.
They were of course distantly related to Eliza and me, too, since our Vermont ancestors had once been content todogpaddle endlessly, so to speak, in the same tiny genetic pool.