My brothers and I had four dogs during the years we were growing up.
That is of course only if you discount the basset hound that “followed”
one of us home tied with a slip knot around its neck, or the Beagle that came
in the yard tightly tied into a set of paper route bags with a plaintive “It followed
me home, mom, can we keep it?”.
The first real dog pet was a cast off female Springer Spaniel that we
found at the SPCA over in Oakland, California named Lady. That dog I have
written about in greater detail in other stories. She intimidated me when I was young, and
although Jeff may not admit it, she scared him too.
She breathed on my neck on the way home from the pound, I was short
enough to look her directly in the eye, I thought she was going to eat me, and
she did steal and eat my graham crackers in later years.
Karen has always found it tremendously funny to imagine me afraid of
anything, much less a dog the size of a Springer Spaniel.
Other than that, her Brillo pad course hair and joyful nature
ultimately won me over and I recall being mortally crushed on the morning I was
headed to school knowing that mom and dad had decided she needed to be “put to
sleep”.
Between the getting and the loosing, she ran and played with us,
stomped me into the ground on more than one occasion, helped to break my
glasses often, and was the patient devoted companion that every boy wants his
dog to be.
Then there was Hunter. A full
blooded Black Lab. Dumb as the day is
long. Undoubtedly inbred. Woeful, insensative, and footloose.
Hunter was a dog that found it impossible to contain his joy. He was happy to wake up, eat, walk, not,
whatever, he was happy. His tail was
always in motion. So much so that he
literally beat the tip open by wagging it into hard objects. There was a blood line on all of the walls
and furniture in the part of the house Hunter was allowed in. And outside as well.
His tail wag muscles were built up so strong that he could raise a
bruise on a person with that thing.
But most remarkable about Hunter was that he had a wanderlust like no
dog I have ever known since. It seemed
that he lived to break out of the yard and run off down the street. We boys would play with him all day, and then
as soon as it was dinner time and we sat down to eat, we would hear his soulful
“Bowr, Bowr” fading off into the distance.
It was so commonplace that everyone knew exactly what they were to
do. No naval crew was as well
drilled. Dad would jump into the car
while each of us boys would jump on our bikes.
All four of us headed to our prescribed search sectors in town and we
would start combing the streets looking for that vacuum-headed dog.
Didn’t take too many of those dinnertime excursions before dad was done
with that routine. He removed Hunter’s
collar and identification tag and said: “Next time he goes, he stays gone”.
No sooner said than done.
I never really built up much attachment to that short bus dog. But Barry sure did.
Barry was so worried that he biked the 7 miles out of town to the dog
pound fence and called Hunter’s name just to listen to see if he had at least
been caught and was “safe”. I suspect
Barry didn’t understand the reality of dog pound turnover back in those days.
Possibly the most memorable dog we had was Gretchen.
Gretchen was a German Sheppard, reportedly “the runt of the liter” she
was none to big all in all. But what she
lacked in physical size she made up for in intensity.
Gretchen had no problem walking along, choke chain cinched up around her
neck, effectively cutting off all respiration, while on hind legs alone (front
paws 6 inches off the ground) she drug one or more of us boys down the street
towards some neighborhood cat.
That dog had a thing for cats, never knew another that was as focused
on cats as Gretchen.
Some fool cat one time thought it would walk the top of the back fence
and harass her. Big mistake. I never knew a dog could think in complex
problem resolutions until that day. We
were out in the back yard playing with Gretchen when this big old Tom come
slinking along the top of a 6 foot board fence.
History had taught that cat that he was safe up there and orneriness patterned
him to stop midway across the back fence and announce his presence with a
spittled hiss just to watch the fun.
Gretchen looked up from 35 feet away and launched herself straight at
the fence. The cat smiling smugly arched
his back and started to hiss again.
About that time, Gretchen reached the fence. And instead of trying to climb it, she threw
herself at the fence, twisting sideways, and literally body slammed the top of
the fence right out from under that cat.
His snotty hiss instantly changed to a falling scream as he dropped
right in front of that Sheppard.
Last time that cat ever pulled that stunt.
And she was maniacal about protection.
Turns out she had been attack trained and took her responsibilities
serious. Not that she was inherently
mean. Far from it. She loved to play and we boys could ball up
our fists and swing as hard and fast as we possibly could, and on those few
occasions that we actually connected, she just shrugged it off. More often then not though, out fist would end
up clamped gently in her teeth without here ever braking skin that I recall.
And we could take her to the football field, order her to sit and stay
and anyone could walk up and she would love to be pet.
But lord help you if one of us was close by.
One of Barry’s good friends found that out the hard way. Tim used to hang out with us a great deal,
even though he went to the other High School in town. But he was a fellow scout and thise a
friend. Tim and Gretchen would play at
the football field without problem.
Then one day, Barry and Tim were chatting over the drive gate. Tim laid his arm on the top rail. Gretchen was watching his every move.
Tim rolled his hand at the wrist to punctuate some point he was making.
To Gretchen it was a movement that she interpreted as trying to reach Barry.
Tim’s arm ended up with this really neat set of parallel fang mark
scars, right across the bulky part of his forearm.
That incident combined with the elderly next door neighbor’s fright of
Gretchen was enough to send her on to another locale.
Our last dog was a Doberman
named Becket. Black and brown, lean
bodied and fast that dog was. He was a
bit of an airhead like Hunter before him.
But he was mostly lovable.
By the time we had him, my brother’s and I had grown to acquiring inappropriate
“liquid beverages” as the saying goes.
We used to find it funny to get that dog drunk.
Becket was a happy drunk.
Mostly. He would wobble around
for a bit then curl up and sleep for a half hour or so. That seemed to be all it ever took. 30 minutes and he would wake back up with a
hangover.
Yep, poor dog would walk around moaning. A moan would elicit a whine and the whine
would elicit a yelp. The funniest part
to us was the most soothing to him. He
would stand up, slowly lower his head until the top was pressed firmly down on
the carpet with his nose pointing back towards his tail, and then holding his
head like that he would slowly walk forward rubbing the top of his head until
he bumped into a wall and then turn around and do it all again.
We finally got rid of him after several odd experiences. Once in a while, when Becket was waking up
from a non-drink induced sleep. He would
have a very frightening spasm. Something
about the breed I understand, but they can twist their neck just so and the
bones pinch the spinal cord. When that
happened to him, his teeth bared, and the hackles on his neck came up, his head
would tilt off level to one side or the other and only one eye opened all the
way.
Mom was worried we boys would get chewed up worse than our usual bike
wrecks and fist fights. So that was
that.
I found out many years later that Mom had wanted to get my brothers and
I a skunk as a pet. And no, it has nothing
to do with the wise crack that is forming in your head. She had read somewhere that skunks were
extremely smart and even tempered pets once they had been “de-scented”. Only problem was, by the mid-1960s it was
already hard to find an animal doctor hat had any real world skunk “flowerifying”
experience.
Go figure. Must have had
something to do with the chemical weapons ban after the World War wound down.
©Copyright 2015, Marty Vandermolen, All Rights Reserved
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