Dogs

By Bridget

There was usually at least one dog on the farm. Most often we got these dogs when their previous owner couldn't keep them anymore, as with Ace, our uncle Tim's dog. Sometimes they'd just show up. Hunter, showed up around deer hunting season, hence the name Hunter, which my friends later changed to Cancer when his tongue started rotting off. The first dog I remember us having was Lindy. She was a fluffy black and white dog. I don't know where we got her, but she was a very nice dog. She somehow got pregnant, perhaps by a visiting neighbor dog or by visiting a neighbor dog. I don't remember us having another dog at the time, but I was quite young.

Molly, Danny, Bridget, Theresa, Mary and Lindy the dog.
She eventually had her litter in the hollow bottom of an old tree down by the marshy area by the road. Finding where our dogs or cats had given birth was hard. We had so many places perfect for giving birth: feed troughs, bundles of twine, hay piles, or even old trees as Lindy did. She had a few puppies and as always, we each decided which one was ours and named them. I was, oh so creative and clever at the time, so I named mine Puppy.

Mary, cousins- Michelle, Annie, Megan, & Brian, and Danny holding Lindy's puppies

I'm not sure what happened with all the other puppies from Lindy's litter, but I only remember my Puppy surviving. Perhaps there weren't as many as I thought there were or maybe they died or were given away. But I remember Puppy being around for awhile. She was a thin, short-haired dog, not at all fluffy like her mom. Her being "my dog" didn't really mean much to anyone except me. And even to me it didn't mean anything except I could say I'd named her.

Anyways, eventually, our dad ran her over. Our dad has ran over a lot of animals, a few dogs, a few cats, who knows what else. He ran over Puppy while he was cutting hay. Though the year was 1980-something, our dad farmed with horses. Our horses at the time were probably Nancy and Mike, or perhaps Sadie was still there. He cut hay with a machine that had sharp, triangular blades attached to a long metal arm that could be moved up and down. Puppy, and most of our dogs, always followed the horses out to the fields and ran alongside them as they worked. Puppy got in the way of the blade, and got a leg cut off. I remember this had happened before with a dog, but that dog had two legs cut off and had to adapt to only having the front legs and dragging its butt along. Puppy only lost one leg, so was much more fortunate. She was able to live for awhile longer with only three legs. She still chased cars and still tried to follow the horses. Sadly, she met her demise by once again getting ran over, this time for good.