Sunday, February 27, 2005

The Best Actor on a Farm

I was reading Marty's K-9 problems with odors and it reminded me of our farm dog Winnie. Winnie was one of our more popular farm dogs. She was friendly, barked when someone drove in but was not interested in the people who drove the car, just the car. And most importantly for a good farm dog, she was completely worthless.
She was old the day I set a large hogshed down on top of her. (didn't know she was there) Even though she survived, it slowed her down.
One morning I was timing cattle feed into our feed wagon. I petted her, she went out the door, and came back about sixty seconds later for another stroking. Problem being that in the time between leaving and coming back she had taken a direct hit from a skunk. I indicated to her that she should leave. She did. We left for a few days, and my brother accidently hit her with a pickup the next morning,(remember she was slow) and killed her. He got out of his pickup, to load her up and take her to a burial site, but couldn't get close because of the skunk residue.
His hired man drove up, and in what has now become known as an Academy Award winning performance, my Brother, now almost in tears, told George "I just ran over our old farm dog, that dog has been a part of this family for fifteen years, she was an old family pet and I just killed her, and now I just can't stand to bury her, she's over there by those trees". (technically not a lie) George put his arm around Ed's shoulder and in that tone reserved for those who have just had a death in the family, George quietly said, "Ed I'll take care of it, it's the least I can do".
When we returned, Ed told us about the dog and that he had 'taken care of the burial'. It wasn't until later that we learned the rest of the story.
"And the Oscar goes to....."

1 comment:

Idgie @ the "Dew" said...

That poor dog had a rough end of the life there. And then had to die stinky on top of it. Very sad.

I had a dog get hit by a car once and my dad hired the town drunk to dig the hole to bury her. Wanta know how many times we had to pull the drunk out of the hole he was trying to dig? (Airdale - big hole)