Best Stories of 2011 - Number four

The Dogs of Wing
      We had no house dogs at Wing, mind you. Any dog of ours unlucky enough to stray indoors quickly caught a broom on the behind to usher them back out. I understood that they lived or died on their own good luck. Money was not spent on dogs if they got sick. But, nevertheless, dogs were a big part of my life at Wing.
     Contact with dogs came early in my memory. Spot was an aging, cancer eaten long haired dog,
nearing the end, faintly recalled in my earliest recollections. Not so faintly recalled is the rifle shot that ended his suffering existence.
Snippy was a short haired, black, chunky feist. He was a fine squirrel dog without a hunter. Harold, my older brother, his hunting partner, had gone off to college. Snippy spent his days, lying in the warm sun, dreaming of days gone by. On cold winter nights, he would jump up through the open crib door of the barn, work his way into the hayloft, and burrow in for the night. One very cold morning, with temperatures hovering near the single digits, I approached the barn. Then I saw him. Snippy lay, curled up in a ball in the snow, frozen solid. Above him was a closed, and latched, crib door.
     Next came Chubby. We just never hit it off. He was my sister Barbara Lou's dog. Very ill tempered around me, he growled when I came around, I picked at him in return, and our relationship deteriorated from there. Even as an old dog, most of his teeth gone, he would attack my shoes in a rage if I ever came near his food bowl.Chubby often liked to visit in the neighborhood, and I assume he was unwelcome. He once came home with a tin can full of gravels attached to his tail. Dad finally got tired with his constant carousing and took him to a man in need of a dog five miles away. The next morning he was home, and he stayed awhile this time. Chubby loved to chase cars, and his hobby eventually led to his undoing.
     My very first dog of my own was Champ. I built Champ a house, painted his name over the door. We wrestled and played, getting closer daily. As Barbara Lou and I rode to the cucumber patch one morning, Champ followed. When we arrived, I said, "Let me out so I can watch after Champ while you turn the truck around." But I was too late. Bumped and knocked off balance by a front wheel, the rear wheel ran over his snout. Champ got up, walked a few steps, looked at me, and I saw the light begin to fade from his eyes. Slowly he fell. I raced to kneel beside Champ, my shaking hand feeling a faint heartbeat ebbing away. It was a long time before the memory of Champ began to ebb away.
     When I first got Tooter, he was an eight week old, part German Shepherd pup. He sported a black and white cross on his chest. I carried him, resting on my forearm, the two miles back to our farm. As Tooter grew, he learned quickly. He became my constant companion, as we hunted, fished, and trapped - or just roamed the bottoms and mountains for the fun of it. He quickly learned to "stand," "heel," or "back up." Once learned, he obeyed perfectly. If I needed help getting up a slick creek bank after looking for mink sign, I had only to say "back up." Tooter backed into position, waited until I grasped his tail, then pulled me up the bank. Tooter was a world class runner, by human standards. Using the "Stand"  command, I timed him at seven seconds flat for the hundred yard dash, eclipsing the world record by two seconds or so - for a man. Tooter saved me many times. One hot summer day, as I walked barefoot down the weed covered lane to fish at Lilly Pad Lake, Tooter was in the heel position. He suddenly jumped ahead of me, then off to one side. Looking down, I saw a large moccasin, coiled and fangs bared, lying where my next step would have taken me.
     Tooter became a good squirrel dog, though not in the normal sense of the term. He did not trail squirrels, but ran, crashing through the underbrush, scaring any self respecting squirrel into movement. His sharp eyes caught the flash of fur, and another squirrel was treed. Once he had him in sight, he would follow as the squirrel jumped from tree to tree. We worked well as a team. While I quietly waited on one side of the tree, Tooter crashed to the other side to turn the squirrel. They were an important source of meat for my family. The only meat we ever ate was either salt pork, an occasional chicken, or meat I hunted of fished for.