Chubby Gets Country-fied

   It should be noted here that for most of his life,possibly all of it, Chubby had been a city dog not a country one. He and I both had many lessons to learn at Twin Bridges. Right off the bat Chubby got kicked by cows and horses and learned also to steer clear of the goat. Being a bossy terrier type with a bad temper this must have been hard for him to take. He eventually got kicked so many times that he lost all the small front teeth in his upper jaw. When he lost his temper he would take after whatever animal had done him damage and I had to watch him closely. He also figured cats were just to chase and that was that. As mentioned before the boss had Siamese cats. I think there were four females and a male at that time. The tom was named “Father Rat”, Mary was a fine one for coming up with unusual names at times .

   One day I was cleaning the barn when I heard a shout and when I came outside, Mary was hollering that Chubby was going to get Father Rat! Well it certainly looked that way. Chubby was hard on Father's butt and if the cat had stretched out his tail would have had him for sure! I yelled his name and to his credit he stopped and came to me even though he was pretty sure he might get a lickin'. I didn't make a big practice of “beating” on my dog but I did find it necessary at times to chastise him with more than just words. Chubby knew what was coming and proceeded to scream the barn down!!Then I heard Mary hollering out the door again and asking me what I was doing to that poor dog!? I had yet to touch him but he let on like he was getting killed. So he got off and was just punished with words. I knew he was spiteful though and would do it again given the chance.

   After a long day of working with the horses and dudes we would all have supper and then on many evenings would go for a ride on the Indian Reserve, which bordered our land. Chubby and the other dogs usually came with us.

   One dark night, upon returning home I looked down from my horse and wondered what Chubby had found that was white. He seemed to be bringing it home in any event and I would find out later. When I was able to get him in the light it turned out that he had met a porcupine and the “white” was quills! In no time, I had the poor dog was on his side and with pliers I extracted the quills. It was so lucky we had kept moving and he had no time to really get at it with that porky. And in my ignorance, I knew nothing of the “proper” way to extract quills. But being a toughie he just went on his way and seemed none the worse for it.

   Next Chubby thought he would check out the burning barrel for goodies. Mary happened to look out the window about that same time and thought someone had put and old muffler pipe in there. Then it moved, and lo and behold it was the Chubby in there seeing if he could find anything to eat.

   Soon my neutered dog would be back to his fanciful ways and cause a bit of a problem. One of the Corgis came in heat and the undaunted Chubby decided once again that he really was “intact”. On a very busy hot day, with a long line up of people waiting for horses, I heard a bit of a commotion and there were small children pointing and it was at my dog and Candace one of the corgis. They were tied! One dog going left and one going right and what to do??  I phoned my friend Ruth and she informed me we had to throw a bucket of water on them or else scare them. The water was a long way to go so I chose the latter. It worked with a yipe from each dog, they separated and all was well again. Who would have thunk it?

   The next time it happened was not so easy. I got up in the morning and Pops handed me the binoculars and told me to look up the road. There the two dogs were once again, and again they were tied! So I got in my car to go and get them but have you ever tried loading dogs that are going in different directions??  Not easy and as I tried I heard the now-familiar yipes' and they parted and walked home on their own.

   It was a crazy place. Another time Pops spotted Watson, the basset, out on the Indian Reserve playing with the coyotes. Pops predicted there could be some spotted coyotes next batch. Who knows? Watson was always a happy, happy dog so it was hard to tell if his ventures had been successful or not when he returned home but I never did see any basset type coyotes so maybe they were just playing???

  In order to gain a bit of peace on the place, it now became necessary for me to tie Chubby up and prevent further “occurrences”, with the Corgi Candace. Eventually I would forget to tie him and it never happened again, so to this day those shenanigans remain a mystery for me.