Short Tail Tale

My first dog was a brindle Manchester terrier. Brindle is a fancy word for a muddy colored dog with enough black to keep him from looking clean and neat. I called him Rex and he was far from his royal name. Today he would be required to have papers but they would be environmental impact statements or papers to pee on. On a good day, rex was about a foot tall and a little longer than he was tall. If he ate everything he was fed, he might go 15 lbs on his fattest day. I’m pretty sure that he wasn’t blind but he darn sure couldn’t tell that he was the smaller dog in most fights. He seemed to be fairly bright for a dog but what did I know, I loved Rex as much as he loved me.

Rex was one of the puppies born to the dog down the street. Candy Bandy was a black and tan terrier/Chihuahua mix that looked more like a Chihuahua than terrier. She looked like the little Min-Pins of today but she was a little calmer than they are and had an injured front foot and would carry it up and kind of hop as she walked. Somehow a Manchester terrier got in the yard down at the Bandy’s and mated. There were about six or seven pups in the litter and only two that wound up in the neighborhood when they were given to people that wanted a cute little pup. Dennis Laws got one of the pups that had a smooth coat and a solid black color like his mom. For free, I didn’t get pretty.

Rex started out as a noisy runt that demanded to be fed about every two hours. He would eat and immediately poop and go to sleep. Somewhere about two hours later he would wake up, eat, poop and sleep some more. It seemed like a couple of months before he would sleep all night and skip the two-hour feeding. He would howl until I let him sleep in my bed. As a pup he was pretty nice to sleep with but when he grew up later on he hated smelling like a dog and would roll in dead things. He could smell like things that would gag a maggot.

Because of the Manchester terrier influence, rex had a snout that was a little wider than most terriers. He had a broad front and strong front legs that would help him run like the wind. We left his ears and tail long and he almost always had his ears pulled back and his tail held high. If he didn’t stop too fast, sometimes one or both of his ears would be flipped open and they would stay that way until he shook his head.

Across the street there lived a family with two collies. The male, named flip, would bark whenever we can out of the house and Rex would run across the street and the two dogs would run up and down the fence barking at each other until one or the other got tired. To add insult to injury both dogs would stop and hike a leg up on the fence. As rex was about a foot shorter he often would come home a little damp. He would almost always stop and rub himself dry on the grass in the front yard. Unless there was something dead nearby and he would come home damp and smelly.

My favorite Rex story happened the year I had a paper route. Rex would get out with me and walk everywhere I would go if it was warm, sunny and dry. Early mornings, late nights or bad weather would keep him home. Did I mention that I thought he was pretty smart for a dog? On those days when we would walk the three miles on my route he would act like he was a retriever when I threw a paper towards a porch. He would never bother to pick up a paper and bring it back, just chase it as it flew towards a porch. One day as we passed a house on the southwest part of my route, Rex just disappeared. I noticed one time there was a chain link fence and a little dog in the yard but really didn’t pay too much attention. A couple of months later the owner of the house stopped me as I walked by his house. He invited me into the back porch of his house and showed me a box full of little brindle pups. He had the audacity to be mad that Rex had dug his way under the fence and visited his pure bred dog. Yes, a dog whose name never graced the pages of AKC papers clearly bred her. Can you imagine he didn’t even want to give me pick of the litter.

My second favorite Rex story was that same year on a nice warm spring day. Rex was playing chase the paper when he charged down a sidewalk in an apartment complex. Right where the sidewalk made a 90-degree change in direction there was a small depression that seemed to be full of fur. Being the brave, impetuous guy he was, Rex just had to take a mouthful of that fur just to see what it was. What it was, was the biggest male cat I have ever seen. I think it is called a Maine Coon cat. I’ll bet that cat was as pissed off as Rex was surprised. He jumped up out of that hole and made a sound that was somewhere between a mountain lion snarl and a siren. Meeoroar! Rex wasn’t stupid and took off for “far away” places as fast as his little legs would carry. The cat was hot on his trail and about every 10 paces would snarl and take a swipe at Rex’s retreating posterior. Every time the cat would hit home, rex would make a “yipe” sound. It seemed that the sound faded but at least two blocks away I could hear snarls followed by yipes.

It should be no secret that I did not see Rex for the rest of that trip throwing the Wichita Eagle Beacon. I finished my route and went home. I asked mom if she had seen the dog. She laughed and said that about a half hour earlier Rex had hit the storm door and scratched and barked until mom let him in. She said he was in my room and hadn’t come out. I went in and had to look for Rex. I found him under my bed whimpering and shaking like a leaf. I then noticed that caught in his front teeth was the cat fur that he had snatched from that cat. He wouldn’t come out until I got some dog food for him. Even then he didn’t calm down for a couple of hours. It was funny but he never walked down that part of my route again. He would always find some bush to pee on and be on the next block when I got there.

About five years later I got drafted and Rex of course couldn’t come with me. I went home for Christmas and was given the bad news. It seemed that one day a couple moved in across the road and had a little female dog. One day dad let Rex out and Rex made a beeline straight out in the path of one of the few city busses that went down our street. So I guess Rex died in anticipation of action and was buried in the back yard. As long as the family remembers Rex stories he will always be in our hearts. I have a lot of other Rex stories but remember this is a short tail tale.
Dennis