Post #11: Bonnieview

My father-in-law, Bill bought a large piece of property with his best friend, William.  This about 600 acres on the Aransas River.  The nearest town was a small place called Bonnie View, and so that's what we named the property.

The Aransas River took a turn toward the bay at this point, so the property had more than its share of river frontage.  Bill had bought the property as an investment, and so it was "for sale" as soon as they purchased it.  In the meantime, this was a great place for a family with two boys to visit and explore.

The property was just across the river from the Welder Wildlife Refuge, so there was no shortage of animal life.  I took a friend to visit the property once, and he noticed something I had not.  This was the first time my city dwelling friend had ever looked around and not been able to see a utility pole.

This was a good place to hunt deer, wild hogs, turkey and dove.  I have tried my hand at deer hunting exactly two times.  The first time we went to Bonnie View as a family.  My father and his wife had pulled their travel trailer from Arizona to visit and to go hunting with me.  He loved to camp, and had never had the chance to take me on a hunt.  My father had hunted all of his life, beginning during the depression on his family farm in Iowa.  Back then, hunting was necessary to keep the family supplied in meat.  Later, he hunted for the sport of it.  He had brought his rifle and scope to give to me, since he knew he'd had his last hunt.  We slept in a tent, and they stayed in the trailer.  The camping out was great fun. 

We got up early the next morning and trudged off to our deer blinds.  Jason and John went off to a deer blind that was on one end of the property.  I remembered seeing a deer blind on the other end.  I took my elderly father to that spot. 

After a lifetime of smoking cigarettes, my father who was nearing 70, had COPD.  He carried oxygen with him wherever he went.  He had a small pack that he strapped over his shoulder or around his waist, and he could pretty much go wherever he wanted, as long as his tank didn't run empty.

So, off the two of us went.  Me carrying the rifle and scope that my dad had taken on many hunting trips, and him carrying his oxygen.  We walked, and walked, and walked some more.  The blind was a little further away than I had remembered.  I had not bothered to check on it the day before, so I was relying on old memory.  When we finally arrived, the blind was gone!  The blind had been put on the property by one of Bill's friends.  Apparently the friend had decided to take it down and move it to a new location.

Well, that was really OK with me.  I wasn't real sure that I wanted to shoot anything that day, anyway.  It was nice just to be out there with my dad.  So, we turned around and started back.  We were about half-way back to the camp site when I spotted a family of wild hogs crossing the road.  It looked like there were four adults and a half-dozen piglets.

All I could think of was that horrible scene from the book "Old Yeller."  There were a few small shrub oak around, but noting that could get us above charging wild hogs with 3' long razor sharp tusks!  Besides, my dad couldn't climb a tree with his oxygen tank.  The rifle was a single shot.  I couldn't be sure that if I shot one hog, the rest would get scared and run away.  They might just get mad and charge, instead.  I might have time to reload and shoot two more hogs, if I were quick and accurate.  But then the rest of the hogs would be on top of us.  There's that awful scene from Old Yeller again.

So, we froze.  And we waited.

And the hogs crossed the road, totally ignoring us!  Whew.

My second time to go deer hunting was a trip I made with just Jason.  We were at the property before dawn, and we each climbed into a different deer blind.  And then we waited. 

It was cold that morning as the sun turned the darkness to grey, and then brightened everything around us.  I looked into the clearing in front of me, watching for a deer to walk across my line of site, holding my father’s rifle at the ready.  As the dawn emerged on the South Texas brush country, new ideas were dawning in me.  If I did actually see a deer, I was pretty sure I would be able to shoot it, even though it would be the largest animal I had ever shot.  However, there was just a bit of doubt.  Did I really want to kill an animal?  Hogs, snakes and predators would be no problem, but a deer?  And the other concern:  Once I shot the deer, then what?  I knew nothing about gutting and skinning animals.  Doing the initial butchering to get them ready for the final job at the butcher’s shop would be a messy job.  A job I knew I wouldn’t like.

I was relieved that morning that I didn’t have to make that decision.  No deer was seen by either of us that day.  And I was able to make the decision that I am not a deer hunter.  I told this to Jason as I handed him my father’s deer rifle, letting it skip a generation as the rifle moved into the hands of a young man with more appreciation of its purpose than I had. 

The first time we went to see Bonnie View, we went as a family.  Kathy and our sons and Kathy’s sister and her husband made the 45 minute drive to check out this new piece of property.  There was a slough that collected run – off from the property and ran into the river.  It was stagnant water most of the year.  We had driven to the slough at the farthest end of the property.  Everyone got out and started exploring.  Kathy and her sister stood at the fork, watching the river and visiting.  All of us guys headed off to see how far inland the slough ran.

The boys and their uncle go interested in looking at things around the slough, and I walked back to where Kathy and sister were.  Kathy got the idea that she would like to play a little trick on the boys.  There was a small log floating just off shore.  She thought it looked a little like an alligator.  So she thought she would scare the boys and tell them there was an alligator in the water. 

The boys returned and Kathy launched into her little deceit, pointing to the log, trying to convince them that it was an alligator.  Kathy was really convincing, because, as we all watched it looked like a pair of eyes and snout were emerging from the water.  Sometimes Karma doesn’t take long to boomerang back.  This log really was a young alligator.  He was about four or five feet long.

I had my rod and reel in the back of the truck.  I grabbed it and stuck a plastic frog on the end of the line.  I was curious to see what the alligator would do with the frog.  Would it chase it?  Or just ignore it? 

He was patient, and ignored my frog the first time I cast it out to him.  The second time, he got a bit annoyed with me, and snapped at the frog.  There was no chasing.  It happened that quickly!  One snap and I had caught the alligator.  He went under water, and tried to get away, but I kept hold of the line and started to reel him in.  It was hard at first, and then it got easy.

Too easy.

That alligator resurfaced and was staring at me as I reeled him in.  Everyone started heading for their vehicles. And I began to realize that there just might a down-side to catching an 8 foot alligator.  Did he seem a bit bigger now than when I started?

We did eventually let Katie come with us, but that’s a story for next time.

Post #10: Snake!

The boys spent hours playing in the back yard with Katie while they were growing up.  And Katie did her job of protecting the boys and our house from squirrels, skunks and poisonous snakes.

The first time a snake invaded our yard, we heard Katie barking with an urgency that went beyond her normal squirrel chase bark.

Kathy went outside to see what she was barking at.  Then she called for me to come out.  Katie had been barking a snake that was close to our house.  She was keeping a safe distance away, telling the snake to go away.  Once family was in the backyard, Katie became more aggressive.  Now she wasn’t just trying to chase the danger away.  She was trying to protect us from the snake.  She started darting at the snake.  I had to run the wrong way, away from the snake, to get a tool to kill the snake.  It felt like it took hours to dart into the shed and grab a hoe. 

I got the hoe, and was back in the action.  I tried to go in for the kill, but Katie was quicker.  I watched with dread as Katie lunged and the snake lunged, too quick to really see what happened.  I think she was able to dance out of the way in time.  It looked like the snake missed.

Katie was still barking, still lunging.  I got in with the hoe and started hacking away at the snake, usually hitting the snake just a little behind where I thought I would hit, but still getting in some good licks.  Katie began to bark, but as the snake was getting more and more injured, and becoming less of a threat, we noticed Katie beginning to wobble and stagger. 

I killed the snake.  Kathy got a good look at Katie.  She had two small bloody spots on her muzzle.  We knew little about snake bites, other than they could be deadly.  All of the good TV shows said you put a tourniquet around the injured limb, sucked the venom out and got to a doctor lickity-split for an anti-venom injection. 

Well … we could do the last one.  So I gathered the remains of the chopped up snake and threw it in a bucket.  After all, if Katie is going to get an anti-venom shot, the vet will have to know what kind of snake it was that bit her, won’t he?  The snake did not have rattles, but it was obviously venomous.  Did young rattle snakes not have rattles?  Is there another kind of venomous snake that inhabits South Texas?  We didn’t know, so bringing the snake with us was important.

Then we bundled up Katie and put her in the car.  Off we flew to the nearest vet.  They are never as close as you need them to be.

We carried Katie in.  We carried in the bucket with the dead snake.  The vet looked at the snake in the bucket and asked why we brought the snake.  He had no idea what kind of a snake it was.  Ok, we thought, well maybe there is an all-purpose anti-venom that he uses. 

We watched expectantly as the vet turned his attention to Katie.

He gave her a tetanus shot and a shot of anti - ….

... biotics!? 

What?  Where’s the anti-venom?  We were worried about Katie dying from the poison, and the vet is treating her against tetanus and salmonella? 

The vet told us that there would be a lot of swelling, but that she would survive.  A snake bite on the muzzle is the best place for a dog to get bit.  The poison rarely gets down to the heart when the bite is in the muzzle.

He gave us a bottle of antibiotics medication and sent us home with Katie.

Katie’s face and neck did swell a lot.  I’m sure she was in pain for a few days, but then the swelling began to go down.  Katie recovered, with the only side effect being a little scar on her muzzle where the snake’s fangs had sunk in.

This was the first of three snake bites that our brave dog would take in her effort to protect us and keep us safe.  The confrontations would always start with frantic barking.  As soon as we stepped out, she would start lunging at the snake.  Kathy would try to grab Katie while I ran to get a killing tool, usually the hoe.

Katie could evade Kathy, but not the snake.  I would come in and kill the snake.  Once we realized that she had been struck, we would rush Katie to the vet, who would give her another antibiotic shot, fill a prescription of antibiotics, and then send us back home.

Three snake bites did have one effect on Katie.  As she got older, her skin would not quite return to the same tautness it had in youth.  I'm sure if she could have seen herself in a mirror she would have been embarrassed at the double chin she had developed in her later years.

 

Post #9: Katie Follows Her Nose

We knew that Beagles followed their noses.  We had read about that in our books on beagles.  But we were confident that our little short dog would not be able to jump over our fence and escape.  Our fence would keep Katie safely in the back yard.

As she grew older, Katie determined that there were a lot of great smells on the other side of the fence.  And she wanted to explore every one of them.  Our faith in her inability to jump was well founded.  However, we neglected to consider that Katie was a digger.  She began to dig her way UNDER the fence to explore the neighborhood.  I’d go out, find Katie missing and there would be a big hole under the fence.  So I’d put a block of wood or a cinder block in the hole and go get Katie.

Now digging under the fence in Aransas Pass was really no great feat.  After all, once you get past the little bit of grass that we had there are several feet of sand before any one with a shovel would hit clay, or anything that might give a digging dog a challenge.  Of course, it took me a while to figure that out.  Katie would dig out, I'd put in a block of wood or cinder block, and she would start digging out right next to the first hole, where the grass had already been removed. 

After several holes, I got the idea to bury a lawn timber under the fence where Katie had escaped.  That meant she couldn’t access the same hole where the grass had been dug up, but had to start a new one.  After putting down a few timbers, I learned that Katie could dig deep enough to get under a lawn timber.  So the next step was to bury lawn timbers two deep.  I took this plan on as a project, and sunk those timbers all the way around the fence.  This plan worked.  Katie was now confined to our yard.

Katie could no longer go underground.  But Katie was not a two dimensional dog.  She had the flat surface of the back yard, and could no longer go down.  That was not enough for her.  So she learned to go up.

Squirrels: those cute little furry rodents whose main job in life is to torment dogs.  They perch in the trees and chatter down at the poor grounded dogs, making fun of the dogs’ inability to climb up and chase them.

Except for Katie.  She did not know that dogs can’t climb trees. 

The squirrels would show up while she was napping and run across the lawn.  When Katie woke up, she knew immediately that her territory had been invaded.  She would run around the back yard, nose to the ground, tail high in the air, baying at the scent of her invaders.   Her tracking always ended up with the same frustration.  The squirrels had run up one of the live oak trees, out of her reach.

We had several Live Oak trees in our backyard.  The beauty of the Live Oak is in the way they allow the prevailing wind to shape their trunks.  So, rather than tall straight trees, they grow with bit of a slope.  Not a big slope usually, but still they were slanted.

Katie learned that she could take advantage of the sloping tree and run up the side of the trunk and into the branches.  There were three problems with this, however.  First, Katie could not get out to the narrow ends of the branches where the squirrels were.  Second, she could not jump from the branches of one tree to the branches of the next tree.  Katie’s biggest problem, however, was when she had followed the scent as far as she could, and the excitement had died down.  At this point, she realized that she could not get back down.  She let us know that she need our help by barking at the house.

Katie would remain stuck in the tree until I got a ladder or one of the boys climbed up the tree to rescue her.  It usually took at least two of us to get Katie down.  One of the boys to pick her up, off the limb, and someone on the ground or ladder to take her out of the hands of the first rescuer. 

I don’t think Katie ever got tired of engaging the whole family in this fun activity of “chase the squirrel”.

Post #7: Katie

We decided to buy a new dog soon after Spike died.  I wanted a dog like Spike, but knew that would be unlikely.  Especially since we did not even know for sure what breeds had mixed to create Spike.

So, I began to do a bit of research.  I asked some friends for recommendations and looked around on the fledging internet a bit.  The beagle had come up as a possible breed.  Kathy and I bought a book on beagles and read a bit about them.  We decided that a beagle would be great.  Who wouldn’t want Snoopy for a pet?

A search of the local paper revealed a family in Flour Bluff had some beagle puppies for sale.  We all piled into our minivan and headed across the bridge in search of the breeder’s home.

The puppies were adorable.  I mean really, have you ever seen a puppy that wasn’t?  There were several little balls of black and white fur romping in the grass and playing with each other.  Some seemed interested in us, and others were content to play with their siblings.

One puppy was a bit rounder than the others.  This little roly-poly puppy kept attacking my shoe laces.  Obviously, she had selected us for her new home.  And we decided that this was the little puppy that we wanted.

I’m not sure exactly how she came to be named “Katie.”  I am sure that I was relieved that this little girl would have a girl’s name.

We took Katie to the vet for her first check up and her first round of shots.  We discovered that there was a reason for that little fat tummy.  Katie was full of worms.

Katie was de-wormed and received all of the appropriate shots.  AND, we started her on heartworm prevention.  That was one lesson well-learned.  Of course we were still not experts in dog-care.  We were better.  But we still had a lot to learn.

Katie was such a tiny puppy. And we put her in a really big back yard.  We had bought her to be another “outside dog.”  Katie cried her first night in her new yard.  She didn’t have her mom or her siblings, and even the dog house we had for her was a bit big. 

At this point in my life, I wish that we had understood more about dogs (and my allergies) and that we had brought her into the house.  But I was worried about my asthma, and we were determined to make her an “outside dog.”  Katie did learn to be an outside dog.  She grew confident and comfortable in her new back yard.  Eventually, she was uncomfortable on those times that we allowed her to come into the house.

But still, I will always wonder about our decision.

Post #6: Old Vets and Mosquitoes

Our vet was elderly and was an old college friend of Kathy’s father, Bill.  We took Spike to see him once a year for her shots.  Since she never got sick, her only visits were these once a year trips.  He finally retired and sold his practice to a new, young vet who was just starting out.  The new vet inherited us along with the rest of the practice.

Spike was seven years old when we made our first visit to the new vet for the routine rabies shot.  This vet took a blood sample and a stool sample, and checked Spike out pretty thoroughly.  He took the samples and checked them under his microscope.  When he turned around, he asked us what we were giving Spike for heartworm prevention.

“What?  What’s that?” we wondered. 

The vet was surprised at our surprise.  This was a very preventable problems.  Spike had heartworms.  She had a lot of them.  The heartworms were transmitted to Spike by mosquitoes.  There are a lot of mosquitoes in the Coastal Bend of Texas.  The heartworms made their way into her blood vessels and began to multiply.  Heartworms can grow to be a foot long, and can block off the arteries leading to the heart. Over time, they can cause heart and lung problems, embolisms, and death. Spike did not seem to be showing many of the advanced symptoms.  She was not coughing or breathing heavily.  She did seem to have less stamina and had become less active.  However, since she was an "outside dog" we didn't really know much about her daily activities.  We did not pay that much attention to Spike, other than when we went out to play with her in the back yard.  And it was usually the boys who played with her, not Kathy or I.

There is a treatment for the heart worms, although treatment can be dangerous.  It was possible that Spike would not survive the treatment.  The vet warned us that even if the treatment were successful, Spike may not ever regain her full amount of energy.  The heartworms had already done a lot of damage to her heart and lungs.  Without treatment, Spike would get worse, have problems breathing, lose even more stamina, and die.

Spike’s chances of survival were not good.  We decided to give her every chance we could.  So we gave the vet permission to begin treatment.  She was administered Arsenic to kill the heartworms.  She received her first shot, and we were told to bring her home and keep her confined.

We set up a small space in the house and fenced Spike in.  We knew that she was not feeling well, as she never complained about being kept inside the house or being confined to the small space near our front door.  Spike became lethargic, but was also happy to be near us.  She did not seem to get better, though.  We took Spike in for her second shot of arsenic, just knowing that we were killing the heartworms, while hoping that we were not killing Spike.  Spike became more lethargic.

We decided to leave Spike with the vet after the third injection. She had a lot of arsenic in her, and she needed to be monitored closely.  This was the end of the treatment.  Spike should start getting better in a few days, but we were at a critical point.

Kathy stopped by the vet's office that night on her way home to check on Spike.  Kathy could get to the kennels in the back of the office, even though the staff had already gone home.

Kathy found Spike laying in her kennel, exhausted from her fight with the heartworms and the arsenic.  At first, Kathy thought she might be dead.  But Spike saw Kathy and became alert, wagging her tail, weakly.  Kathy spoke to her and petted her for a bit.  Spike returned the affection with a few kisses.  Then Kathy went home.

A couple of hours later the vet called.  Spike had died.  Kathy felt sure that Spike had roused herself from near death so she could tell Kathy good bye.

We were all sad.  I drove Kathy and the boys to the vet's office to pick up Spike.  The vet wrapped Spike in a towel that we had brought, and sent us home with her.  Kathy had called her father about Spike, and he met us at our house.  We picked out a spot in our back yard to bury Spike, and I started digging.  It was late, and dark, but the sand was soft. I had never buried a pet before, and wasn’t sure how deep to go.  My father-in-law was watching, so I wanted to be sure I did it right.  I just didn’t know what right was.  So I dug.  And I dug.  And I dug some more.  Kathy, Bill, Jason and John stood by watching me dig.

I was thinking “how deep should I go?  They bury people six feet.  I could probably do that, but that seems awful deep.”

I had gone down to the point that I was standing in a hole almost to my waist when I heard my father-in-law’s voice: “are you digging to China?” 

I knew it was time to stop.

We placed Spike gently in the bottom of the grave and covered her.  Kathy cried.  I cried. Jason cried.  John threw up.  We all said our goodbyes to Spike.

Spike was a wonderful, beautiful dog.  She was loyal, bright and she took better care of us than we took care of her.

Lessons learned:

• Heartworm prevention is a must.
• Dogs need fences.
• The best dogs really do bite.  They protect their family whenever there is a perceived threat.  They aren’t vicious, just protective.

Post #5: Spike's Fence

Spike matured, she became family.  Of course, she was the family member who had to live in the back yard.  And she was the family member that was tied to a lead during the day and let loose at night.  We felt she needed to be allowed some freedom to run.  Night seemed to be a good time to let her loose, as she could watch our whole house, and she would not bother any of the neighbors.  We thought all was well, and everyone was happy with this arrangement.

Our neighbors eventually clued us in that they were not happy about Spikes nighttime wanderings.  We unleashed her in the evening with the belief that she would stay out of trouble.  She was such a good dog, after all.

Our neighbor complained of missing flip-flops, and another let us know subtly that it was Spike who was probably stealing our newspaper.  They were almost too subtle, for me.  I think like a guy, after all, and guys usually don’t pick up on “subtle.”  Just ask any woman who has tried to give a guy a hint about how their behavior annoys them.  Like a lot of men, it generally takes a direct statement for me to “get it.”  However, I finally figured out that it really was Spike who was causing all this mischief in our neighborhood.
Once this sunk in, we did the right thing and built a fence around our backyard.  Everyone was happier.  Even Spike was happier.  She no longer had to be tied up during the day.

Post #4: Spike, the Protector

Spike grew a bit larger than we expected, but she ended up being a good size.  She was about three foot tall when on all fours. 

We decided that she probably had some kind of shepherd in her.  She was quite protective of the boys, and she never wandered too far from the house.

We decided that for the benefit of our neighbors, we needed to keep her tied up during the day.  We put Spike on a long lead with a swivel post.  She was adept at not letting herself get tangled up.

The boys would come home from school and take her off her lead to play with her.  Spike would follow them on their bicycle rides and other wanderings around the neighborhood.  Spike pretty much stayed by their sides all the time.  She even tried to protect the boys from themselves. 

One Saturday, the boys rode their bikes to a construction site.  There was a large pile of dirt at the site.  Being boys, their first thought was to play “King of the Mountain.”  A game in which each boy tried to be the only one on top of the dirt mound.  This was a game that involved pushing the other one down. 

Spike was not happy.  She got between the boys, she barked, and she started pulling the boys down the dirt mound by their pants legs.  The boys finally gave up and rode their bikes home. 

Our view of Spike was that she was a friendly dog who would never hurt anyone.  She saw herself as part of our family with the assignment of protecting the family from danger.

A new neighbor moved into the house next door.  They had a dog, too.  One evening we all happened to be in our respective backyards at the same time.  The neighbor’s dog had not yet learned the boundaries between the houses, since we had no fence.  The dog came into our back yard and growled at John.  The next thing I knew, Spike had bowled the intruder over and was standing over the neighbor’s dog with her mouth hovering over the other dog’s neck.

Our neighbor’s father seemed to be the only one not in shock.  He gently grasped Spike’s collar and pulled her back.  Thankfully she was compliant.

One afternoon the doorbell rang at our house.  Kathy was home alone.  She answered the door, and a UPS man was standing in the entryway with a package.  She signed for the package, but he did not move. 

“Is there anything else?” Kathy asked. 

“Yes mam,” he stammered, “would you please call off your dog?”

Spike was standing behind the UPS man, with a very attentive look and a low growl.  Kathy called Spike and she sat down, allowing the UPS man to leave.

These episodes taught me that any dog has the potential to bite.  It does not matter how friendly the dog is to its’ family, given the right circumstances the dog can go into protective mode and become violent. 

When someone asks if they can pet one of my dogs, I know longer just say “sure.”  I’m careful to check my dog’s current disposition before giving permission, and to give a warning to the person making the request to approach my dog carefully.