A Dog's Life
A Dog’s Life
This is a reprint from my blog August 2020
By Paul Yoder on Saturday, August 29, 2020
It must have been about 40 years ago that Pup arrived at our home. My memory is a little foggy, but I seem to recall riding home from a flea market or auction barn in the back of our buggy with a little black puppy someone had given us. He was a mixed breed, predominantly black lab, I think. In today’s world of high-priced, registered, purebred dogs, Pup would probably have been sent to the shelter to be disposed of. However, we didn’t care about bloodlines and registration papers. We were just happy to have a puppy, and he was part of our life for a long time. In fact, when I think of our years in Windsor, MO, Pup looms large in my memory. He was my companion on many adventures, roaming the fields and forests surrounding our home. Pup was often with me and was probably more of a protector than I realized at the time. Although we gave him another name, it never stuck. Pup is what he was called, and that’s what he answered to.
Unlike our pampered dogs nowadays that cost us thousands of dollars in vet bills, Pup never saw a veterinarian and never felt the sting of a needle. He came to our farm as a puppy and pretty much took care of himself. Although we cared for him and fed him when he was young, I don’t recall feeding him or giving him much care once he was grown. It didn’t occur to us to do so; after all, a full-grown dog could take care of himself!
That doesn’t mean Pup wasn’t loved. We spent a lot of time playing with him, but he was an outdoor pet. We never even dreamed of spending money taking him to the vet or buying food for him. He mostly survived on table scraps that we threw out and small animals that he killed and ate. Pup was at his happiest on chicken butchering days. My job was to kill the chickens. I placed the fowl head down in metal funnels with their heads sticking out the bottom. With a flick from a sharp knife, I slit the jugular. Blood ran freely, and Pup was right beside me, eagerly lapping up the blood and gobbling down the chicken heads that I handed to him.
Pup had a quiet, brooding personality that may have mirrored that of my brothers and me, quiet and sober. His coal black face and drooping skin gave him a rather somber look. He was very protective of us as his family, and was so suspicious of strangers that he needed to be watched closely when people were around. He didn’t do a lot of barking; a deep, rumbling growl was the only warning before he attacked an adversary.
Even though Pup grew up in an Amish family, he never bought into the Amish beliefs of non-resistance, loving your enemies, or turning the other cheek. Forgiveness was not in his vocabulary. Pup had a long memory, and if he was wronged, he believed in paying it back in full with interest! When Pup was still young, our turn came to host the Amish church service in our home. As people were hanging around after church, one of the men took great delight in teasing and tormenting little Pup, holding him up by his ears and shaking him. Pup yelped and cried, but he couldn’t get away. I was too young to confront the man and could only watch his cruelty in helpless anger.
About a year later, church came to our house again. Pup, now fully grown, watched that Sunday morning as buggies rolled in and men and boys stood around in the yard waiting to file into the house. Pup sat quietly beside my brothers and me as the Amish men and boys filed by to shake our hands according to Sunday morning tradition. When the man who had earlier tormented Pup came along, there was a sudden rumbling growl and a furious yelp. Pup launched himself at the man’s leg while growling furiously. We wrestled Pup off his victim and restrained him as he fought to pay the debt he owed his tormentor.
Needless to say, we boys were delighted that Pup had taken matters into his own hands and evened the score. The tables had turned, and that man was now afraid of Pup. Whenever he came to our house, he had to watch carefully lest that black, hate-filled demon would come after him. Pup never forgot, and he never considered that debt to be properly repaid.
Pup was not penned or tied up, so he had a lot of freedom to roam. He was not particularly well trained, but he did respond when called unless he was occupied with something he considered more important. He was his own man, and while he appreciated the hospitality of my family, he maintained his freedom and independence. One thing he learned well was the command to “sic ‘em.” He always responded enthusiastically and aggressively to the detriment of his hapless target. If he didn’t know what he was supposed to go after, he would growl and look wildly about, trying to find something to attack.
My brother Andy took advantage of this one day when the preachers were at our house giving Dad a hard time about something. As they got in the buggy to leave, Andy said quietly out of the corner of his mouth, “Sic ‘em, Pup.” Pup instantly tore after them, biting at the buggy wheels and worrying the horse while growling furiously. He sent a message in no uncertain terms that the preachers were not welcome there!
For entertainment, Pup enjoyed chasing wasps and bees, snapping them with his mouth to kill them. More than once, he got stung in his mouth, which always made him angry indeed. But he never gave up his hobby.
Another one of Pup’s hobbies involved chasing the mailman. He occasionally chased other cars, but none as persistently and relentlessly as the mailman. Pup considered it his sacred duty to attack the mailman’s Ford Bronco as it came rolling down the road. Pup would angrily attack the tires as the mailman deposited the mail into our box, pulled into our driveway, backed up, and turned around. The entire time, Pup was furiously growling and biting the wheels. This dangerous hobby caused Pup to get run over at least once, but he never stopped.
Pup didn’t have the same idea of comfort that you and I have. Our farm had a good-sized barn that was usually well stocked with hay and filled with a variety of animals. The barn would have provided a nice shelter for Pup to sleep in, but he scorned such soft comforts. He spent his nights curled up in the middle of our gravel driveway, on the alert for anyone daring to invade his territory. At night, he often sat and howled with the coyotes he heard off in the distance.
When we left our home in Missouri and moved to North Carolina, Pup rode in the back of a semi-trailer with a couple of our horses. He lived with us there for a several years, but he never settled in North Carolina like he had in Missouri. As he grew older, Pup became more grumpy, antisocial, and aggressive. The day came that he attacked a neighbor kid for the unforgivable crime of riding past our house on a bicycle. After that, Pup had to go.
Pup left us with a legacy of loyalty and a lot of good memories, especially of his admirable qualities. In spite of those good points, his jealousy, overprotectiveness, and aggression led to his downfall.
Such is life; puppies and people come and go, filling our lives for a moment before leaving us with memories and lessons learned, whether for better or for worse.