Easter Sunday my big girl, Abbe, went lost.
My cousin has several acres on the far west side of Elwood, wooded, lots of water, and a creek out back.
Dog heaven.
Three large dogs had been going strong for over three hours. Then Abbe lie down beside my chair and went to sleep. And then she was gone.
Everyone tried to find her, walking, driving, calling, calling, calling, stopping to enquire of everyone they saw, for over two hours.
I grew tired, and frustrated, and went home, just to be doing something. Of course, when I got home there was nothing to do, so I quickly and quietly went crazy. My worry wasn't my loss: I had the rest of my life for that. It was that whoever took her in would find her much too large for a housedog, and put her on a chain or in a cage.
About an hour after I got home, my sister phoned and said Abbe had just come up the drive, and was trying to get in the cars, find someone to take her home.
Where she is, now.
The road from Pearson's Mill runs north from lakeside, up a long hill and levels out to the SRA sign. I like to walk it because it's wide, paved, and there is much of interest for my dogs on both sides. Plus there aren't many hills in north central Indiana: the Wisconsian glacial epoch of
10-12 thousand years ago levelled our part of the state.
As the hill crests, the woods gives way to an 80-acre field to the west. Today, as I passed the treeline, I looked west and thought, "There's deer back there". My second thought was I hadn't seen any deer in that field in over a year, and why should there be any now?
I am a lout. In touch with nothing: nothing spiritual, no sentiment, no emotions, and certainly not any -sides, feminine, gay, artistic.
Okay, I'm aware that everyone has a full set of X (Female) chromosomes: women have two.
Men, instead, have a set of Y's. Difference: that X-leg we're missing contains expressions for sanity, common sense, sound judgement, and nurturing instincts, plus a few others.
Instead, we have a penis.
So I have no explanation for what happened next. As I looked at some sparse cover in the same corner, a quarter-mile away, I saw movement, then more, then four deer broke, ran north a couple hundred yards along a fenceline, and turned west into cover.
The dogs were in a ditch, drinking fetid water, or I'd be hosing beanfield mud off them well into the night.
I saw a red tail soaring high on those warm breezes Saturday, hundreds of feet, higher than I've seen one. Not falcon heights, by any means. Those fabulous feathered missiles will "wait on" at what can only be termed altitudes, 2000 feet, and more, then power into the stoop (dive), reaching speeds estimated from 180 to 220 mph. And hit the target with razor-edge accuracy, striking a lethal blow without harming themselves.
Okay, It's impossible. Both prey and raptor are vaporized from the impact at speeds that will fly any aircraft.
Except not.
And anyone who says falcons do this "by instinct", I will personally come to your house and smack you.
just venting, I know you all to be dog lovers ; I have never been an emotional type of guy. But today I'm depressed, sadden, beat down, and hope I don't start to shed some tears. Then again maybe it would help. It's 5:30 pm on a shity gloomy monday. About a half hour ago the animal control officer left my house with our two dogs.(pics on fb video) They were orders by the court to be murdered, they used the term put down, but I think murder is what they are commiting. My son was ticketed for " letting an animal to run loose" or leash law. The dogs crime was they got into a fight with another animal and the police had to put down the wild animal. In this case the wild animal was in the city limits in a cage in the back yard two blocks from our house. The wild animal happen to be a deer. I thought it crual to habor an animal like a deer as a pet for selfish reasons . But this vendictive crazy son-of-a-bitch(which he called my son in court) pulled some favors or something at the city building and wanted an " eye for and eye " justice. Our dogs had never bitten a human or tried to, they were overly friendly if anything. The kangaroo court judge would not listen to or give a chance to hear our side of the story, but that winey old man said plenty, had alot of sob stories about having the deer for 18 yrs. He even said its a good thing that no kids were around to be hurt. I have already put a curse on everybody involved in the conspiracy so that on my dogs behalf they all will have terrible bad luck the rest of their life and nightmares of my two dogs eating deer and any of their pets every nite. Its a shame because my two dogs only had 2 yrs. to train me and they did a good job,now I will get another dog on wednesday, my daughter has a boxer less than a year old , and we are getting her and she will start training me right away. Its has actually helped to write this. I feel slightly better(not) there are many more points I could make for our case but whats the point, don't want to beat ourselves up any more on this. sorry to bend your ear. dave cannon
ReplyDeleteDoug, give yourself more credit for your X side. It's there and you've discovered it.
ReplyDelete@Dave. So sorry to read that this happened to you. It's a sad story on so many levels in so many ways. Hope the boxer is bringing you joy.