It's a Dog's Life

 

Here in the winter of no winter, one of the three dogs we keep out here on Baker’s Branch is finding out what a dog’s life can be. 

Heidi, Too (get it?), the first Heidi’s replacement German shepherd, has started learning a puppy’s life is not all hugs and snicker doodles. I met Bob McFall in front of the post office in Sand Springs one day last week, and one of the first things he asked me was it true we have “all those copperheads” out there on the Branch he reads about in the column. 

His question made me hang my head in resignation. It’s a question I get from readers all the time. I know they think I make up this stuff. I told him, and I’m telling you right now, the answer is most definitely yes. Our new Heidi has been bitten twice this year, right in the face, which should tell you a story if you’re paying attention. 

In the thirty-five plus years we’ve lived out here, I cannot tell you how many copperheads we’ve killed, nor how many dogs have been bitten by same. Many, many. 

I now know from experience that where dogs are concerned, like people they come to either one of two attitudes where confronting snakes is concerned: Once bitten, they will either studiously avoid them for the rest of their lives, or fight and kill them at every opportunity; hunt them, even like Clint Eastwood did those Yankees that murdered his family in The Outlaw Josey Wales. 

There are levels to the bitterness of snake bitten dogs. Ask one. 

Those of you that read this space regularly may remember a story I wrote at the end of this past summer that involved Heidi finding a bonafide cottonmouth water moccasin at our front doorstep and alerting me to it by barking ferociously, and trying to snatch it up off the ground while jumping at it. I said a cottonmouth. This came, significantly I think, after the copperhead bites. 

There you have it: She hates snakes, personally, and will hunt and try to kill them all the rest of her days. But that is a choice, her own, she has made. Some of the rest of the stuff going on around out here, she has not bargained for.

Pam ran over Heidi in front of the garage one day last week, pinning her to the ground with the full weight of the undercarriage of the car. The squalling, and grandson Lane hollering, brought me out of the house on the run. 

Running to my truck, I got a jack and began lifting the car off of the dog. With Lane’s help, we got the car off of her, me dreading the worst. Hips? Legs? Spine? 

Incredibly, as soon as she felt herself free, the dog immediately scrambled to her feet, and ran as quickly as she could away from Pam, formerly her best friend, and the car. No limp. Not even a wince. 

One small yelp, and that was it. All this week, she has run rabbits and squirrels at full speed. When Pam pulls down the driveway in the car, she runs some more, proving how smart she is. 

Last night, Pam ran into the living room yelling about the dog some more. Now what? While outside in the dark doing her business before bedtime, Heidi somewhere found a quarter-ounce, inline Rooster Tail spinner, never an uncommon object around this fisherman’s home. 

No, I have no idea where she found it, but there it was, one of its treble hooks run completely through her lower lip and past the barb. Pliers, we keep them in every room of our house. There in the kitchen, I had Pam straddle the dog with instructions to hold her close and tight while I brought the pliers into play. No way that was going to work. 

The first time the pliers touched the spinner, Heidi went straight up like a National Finals bronc, with Pam riding for the buckle. Pam got a “no score” on her ride, two times in a row. All three of us calmed down and took a breather. Two of us talked it over; the other listening intently as if she might have an interest in future events. 

It was decided that Pam would not straddle the dog, but hold it gently by the collar while speaking tenderly to her and stroking her head as only a Grandmother could. I would sneak my hand and pliers in under her chin without touching her until it was too late to register, and pop the hook out backwards, hard and fast. 

Pop! It worked; not even a yelp. 

“You did it,” Pam said wonderingly, “is she going to be alright?”

“No,” I said, “she’s going to bark with a lisp and hunt snakes all the rest of her life, but she won’t chase cars.” 

It’s a dog’s life, you know.

© 2015 Conrad M. Vollertsen