Ode to Dogs

I can't remember a time when there wasn't at least one old stinky dog around in my life. There was an old cocker spaniel named Waldo that the neighbor boy ran down in his driveway as Waldo rushed to catch up with me as I returned from the grocery store at the end of the street. I think that was the last time he drove into the driveway like a mad man. Hell, it could have been one of us kids as fast and reckless as he drove. I really don't remember much about Waldo other than he was not the fastest dog and not the brightest bulb in the pack.

Probably the record was set by Rex. He was a brindle colored Manchester Terrier/mutt mix that ruled 544 Byrd for a long time. One day I went down to Eugene Bandy's house and got to see the new puppies. They were little funny colored things that looked like their dads. I got to pick one and claim him long before he was old enough to leave his momma. That dog and I were inseparable except for school time. He would go with me on my paper route every step except for when the snow got too deep. I am sure that he knew every female dog in the neighborhood and fought a lot of dogs way bigger than he was. He knew how to get under cars to escape big dogs and how to dig under fences to get to that cute little dog in heat. Even after I went to the Army in 1966, he was a part of the letters from home. Right about Thanksgiving in 1966, he ran across the road to visit the neighbor's dog and got hit by a bus. Dang, that bus only came by a couple of times a day and he just wasn't bus smart. Rex will be at least a chapter in my book when I ever get around to writing it.

When we bought our first house in lansing, KS, I got the hankering for a little dog. Our friends had a schnauzer and I just fell in love with that feisty smart little dog. Barb wanted a child and I wanted a dog. I got Fritzy and she got David. Things were pretty well until the day that Dave was dog bit and that ended the inside days for poor old Fritz. There was a path around the yard where that little dog would patrol. Fritzy really stank for such a little dog. I am sure that part of it was his tendency to roll in about anything that smelled like anything remotely different than dog. Fritzy was with us until the year after the tornado. He had excaped right before the tornado and thank god because the house fell on his dog house. A couple of days after the tornado he came home, covered with fiberglass insulation, a small wound on his back and deaf. He resumed partolling the yard after that but just never had the spirit he had prior to the tornado. One day he was walking around in circles and I took him to the vet. He had an infection in his brain and the Vet put him down as I held him.

After we moved to Rabbit Run, I fell in love with a Golden retriever my sister Myrna Sue had. She let me have a male and we called him Moose. The first largest dog in the litter was called Hog Dog and moose was just the cutest big puppy you could have wanted. That first winter we kept him in the garage and I would go out and play catch with him every day. He was just stick crazy and would play fetch until he would collapse.

Sometime about the time it was time for us to bring Moose home, I was told there was a black Lab puppy down the street from where I worked on a construction site. Several of the girls would walk down to the hamburger stand on the corner and buy plain hamburgers to feed it. I saw that dog an knew that she was without a good supply of food and water she would die. It was time to put my Army skills to work. I saw where she would get out of the wind and lay down by some big rocks after a hamburger lunch. I circled around the back side of the rock pile and ambushed her. I took her home and on the way stopped and bought some puppy chow. I put that bag of puppy chow down on the floor of the car and Little Orphan Annie began to salivate. I think she ate three cups full of food on the way home. She was a malnourished black lab but was smart as she could be. When I brought home Moose, they became the best of friends. I had her spayed so we didn't have any little puppies.

Moose and Annie were friends for about 10 years and Annie died one spring day. She had a hard puppy hood and just wasn't as strong. Moose sat out in the pen and howled for a couple of days when I buried her. I went to the Dog Pound and brought home Baby. Baby was almost full grown but had been running wild for a while. She was covered with sores and I had to bathe her daily for a week or so with special shampoo and apply medicine. We became friends in short order. Moose was in dog heaven to have a friend and didn't seem to notice that Annie was replaced with Baby.

A couple of years later, Moose died of old age and I thought it was time to get another dog. My niece in Oklahoma had a big black lab and she wanted to not have a path around the inside of her yard. Thus, Taco came to Rabbit Run to replace Moose.

Now Baby has died and we are down to one dog and a hissing cockroach. Barb found a home for the Cocktails and one of the cockroaches died. I am pretty sure that Taco will live for a couple more years but I am not going to rush out and find him another dog to spend his time with. I guess I'll just have to get out more to play with him.

I guess you can say that I am pretty much as dog person and Barb tolerated that tendency so long as the dogs live outside. We have a cat that visits and eats here but he too lives outside. I can't abide a litter box in the house.

One of these days I'll tell you more about each dog. Baby was one that loved to run as fast and as far as she could when she would escape captivity and then come back and sit in Barb's water feature. I swear that she would just sit there and smile as she cooled down.

No such thing as just another dog. They have all been special. I have left out Grissy as she was from the beginning destined to be Ken's dog and my time with her was just to get her ready for that.

MUD