To the Dogs

 

A while back I told you about my recent trek through the snow on my farm.  As I walked across the yard to begin the hike, some of my friends begged to go along.

“Come on, pups,” I answered.  There was an explosion of fur as most of our six dogs danced excitedly around me.  None leaped higher than Buttercup.

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Buttercup is sleek, short-haired, tri-colored beauty.  Patrick said he found the puppy, cold and whimpering, beside the road where we live.  Nobody I’ve ever met acts happier to be alive than the little dog I usually just call, “Butter.”  She wags her tail all the time and, when she does, the wag starts from somewhere around her shoulders and grows more vigorous as it moves back, but seems to be especially emphasized by her, uh, rear.  It’s no wonder that Annie often just calls the dog, “Butt.”  She is still a youngster so the energy coursing through her half-grown body warms her like a blazing fireplace even on the coldest day.

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Zorro, the huge, hairy Bernese mountain dog mix that recently came back to live with us, stays warm no matter the weather.  Well, actually he gets way too hot in the summer, when he loves to run with whichever of us is training.  He’ll run ahead to the nearest water-holding ditch.  After I cross the bridge and continue on my way, I’ll hear water pouring on the road from Zorro’s sodden coat as he catches up to me.  He’ll look at me, wagging his tail in greeting, and run on ahead to get to the next wet spot.

Middle aged for a dog, he hasn’t yet realized that he’s old enough to slow down, so even though his thick, warm coat will allow snow to build up on him, it rarely does.  It doesn’t have time.  He dances and leaps and runs like a dog Buttercup’s age, sending flakes flying off him almost before they can settle on his shiny black fur.

Zorro’s right eye is dull and sightless due to a shooting by a concerned, if misguided, neighbor.  Sometimes he bumps things simply because he doesn’t see them, but he is too sweet natured to blame anyone.  He whimpers and moves away.

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Cotton’s creamy white mid-length coat and soulful golden eyes bear witness to her proud golden retriever ancestry.  Her stumpy legs, though, reveal that her daddy was an overachieving basset hound who enticed Cotton’s momma into an illicit affair which produced one of the sweetest-natured, beautiful yet funny-looking dogs anyone’s ever seen.  On cold days she stands by the door begging, but only with her eyes (she’s too ladylike to scratch at the door), to be let in the house.  If I let her in she flies up the steps and dashes to her current favorite warm spot.  But, when it comes time to put her outside, those same eyes look at me as if to beg me to reconsider the decision.  Then she’ll slo-o-o-owly stand up and slo-o-o-owly walk to the door.  I swear it looks like she aches in every joint as she moves down the same steps at glacial speeds that she bounced up just a couple hours before.

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I went out to my studio one day for a workout and found two strange dogs had taken refuge on the deck.  I figure somebody had dumped them.  One looked like an old Chihuahua mix and the other was Sarge.  The Chi-mix disappeared over night, never to be seen again, but Sarge stayed.  He’d decided to adopt us.

Sarge looks like he’s probably part German shepherd.  His floppy ears and midsize body prove that at least one of his ancestors was something other than that breed now so famous as guard dogs.  He’s another sweet-natured hound who loves nothing more than playing, whether it’s with the other dogs or with one of my grandkids, or kids, or me.  He’s so mild-mannered that many in our family have never heard him growl.

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O.P.  Even family members usually think of him as Opie, like the character from Mayberry, rather than his real name.  Heck I even spell it Opie most of the time when I write about him…like now.  Andy, with his interesting sense of humor couldn’t resist naming the little puppy after the Transformers character Optimus Prime, O.P. for short.  Opie looks like he may have some English shepherd blood in him somewhere back in the mists of time.  If you imagine a black and white Corgi you get the idea.  His head is shaped like he has a heaping helping of beagle but the length of his ears and color harken back to the English shepherd.  Bless his heart; his legs reveal that at least one of his recent progenitors was a basset hound.  His feet are even more flipper-like than Cotton’s though, and his legs are even stumpier…so stumpy that…  I’ll try to say this as delicately as possible, even in snow only a few inches deep, his, uh, well, “boy” parts drag through it in a manner that looks downright uncomfortable.

He does leave an interesting trail though.

Well, OP’s temperament is more like his namesake Transformer at least.  He won’t tolerate the slightest disrespect from any of the other dogs…except Razzle, that is..

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Razzle gives all the other dogs good reason to back down from her.

Her name was bestowed upon her by some previous owner, but it couldn’t fit her more perfectly.  Onomatopoeic perfection, it echoes the sound of energy too powerful to be constrained by insulated wires, a sizzling excess of electricity.  Razz appears to be a rat terrier/Jack Russell terrier mix.  In her later years now, she still rules the roost at our place.  A growl from her will usually convince even Zorro, who makes about four of her, to back down in obeisance.

Although I’ve never seen Razzle so much as threaten a human, have no doubt, she’s a killer.  She thinks any animal smaller than her and not canine is there for one purpose only, to exercise her killer instinct.  In her younger years she kept our carport decorated with the carcasses of skunks, raccoons, rats, and mice unlucky enough to cross paths with this sharp-eyed assassin.

One time I moved the dog feeder on our carport and a mouse ran out from behind it, headed for the safety of nearby steps.  It was only about three feet and I didn’t even know Razzle was there, but a sudden flash of white and the rodent joined the chunks of dog food in Razzle’s stomach.

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If you don’t count my chickens our only other pet is our one-eyed barn cat, Mistletoe.  Annie was outside our mechanic’s garage one day when a tiny, scruffy kitten came up to her, mewling and begging for her attention.  The mechanic said the kitty was a stray.  The creamy color and the huge bright blue eyes softened Annie’s heart so she brought the little pot-bellied fuzzball home with her.  A trip to the vet for a good worming and some shots, and another later on for “the snip” and Missy had a home for life.  An accident permanently blinded her left eye, leaving it swollen, dull, and looking kind of creepy, but that’s the only thing about Mistletoe that is not absolutely beautiful, inside and out.  She loves it when the grandkids visit her out in the barn and she has proven herself invaluable in her role as mouser.

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Mistletoe was found abandoned in a parking lot.  Opie, Cotton, and Buttercup were picked up, either abandoned or lost, on the side of the road.  I found Sarge cowering on the deck of my studio with another dog.  Zorro came to us twice, the first time as a “donation” to one of the boys from a friend, the second when that son found out that the huge mass of dog flesh was way too big for his suburban backyard.  Razzle was adopted from the pound as a half-grown dog.

The seven of them have a couple main things in common.  One: they are all pretty much perfect, at least to us.  Two: we adopted them.  I don’t think it’s too big a stretch of the imagination to say that all of them were unloved at some stage in life.

But now they are.

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If you need a friend, please consider adopting a homeless dog or cat.  They’ll love you for it.

 

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(below) Optimus Prime (O.P.) lives much bigger than his small size.