Along when I was about 4 or 5 years old, one night after dark, I think we were having supper, and someone drove up to our house. I wanted to go and see, but my mother wouldn’t let me leave the table. In a few minutes, my father came back in the house and brought with him a puppy. The visitors were probably relatives, but it didn’t matter.
I immediately got busy taking care of my dog. I figured it was hungry, so I decided to give it some milk. There wasn’t any small dish I could reach, so a small wash pan was available and handy, so that’s what I poured about a quart of milk into, for my new puppy to drink. Now, he is too small, his legs are too short to reach the milk, so I pick him up and place his front two legs in the milk. Seemed like a good solution to both of us! Since it was wintertime, my mother fixed a box with a bed for him next to the kitchen stove. I don’t remember that he ever cried or complained about being separated from his mother and in a new home or not.
I named him Bruce. It was a common practice in our neighborhood to name a favorite dog by a family name, and since I had a younger first cousin named Bruce, this seemed appropriate at the time. Bruce was a terrier mixed breed dog, or perhaps a feist. He wasn’t very big, maybe a foot to 14 inches tall, and might weigh 25 to 30 pounds. His coat was white with a few touches of brown around his head and ears.
As we both grew bigger, we were never separated. Not only did he follow me everywhere, it soon became obvious he intended to protect me. I noticed when one of my cousins was near with their dogs, Bruce always, without fail, would stand between me and any other dog. It didn’t matter where or when I was going, unless it was in the car with the family, Bruce went along.
I suppose when I was about 8 or 9 years old, I went out to feed Bruce, but he didn’t come to my call. I called and called, and no response. For a day or two I was really worried about him not showing up. In those days, Bruce and all our dogs lived outdoors, and he could come and go as he pleased. Finally, early the third day, I saw him come limping down the drive coming back home. His right rear leg had been entirely severed except for a small bit of skin holding it on. I called mother to come help.
While I held him, she applied some disinfectant, small wooden splints, and cloth bandages and put his leg tightly back together. She then soaked it in kerosene. He would walk around with this hind leg off the ground and it grew back, but because of the nerves being severed he had no feeling in that leg. Only when he was running very fast would he even attempt to put that leg down just for balance. We figured he had been out roaming and had stepped into a trap set by some of my cousins who trapped for furbearing animals. When they ran their traps, they released him.
When we got a little older and began hunting and ranging further away from home, Bruce was always right there, even with several of my cousins, who had mostly hound dogs as pets, it didn’t bother us. We would be hunting and jump up a cotton tail rabbit. It would go bounding off with all these dogs in hot pursuit. It would disappear in a rabbit hole, and the dogs would immediately begin furiously digging. The second dog to arrive would fall in behind the first dog digging, to move the soft sandy soil further back, or the first dog would almost be buried.
If Bruce did not arrive first, or second, because of his bum leg, he would run around front, barking encouragement, and with his mouth pull any roots or briars out of the way. Now just as often as we might jump a cotton tail, we would see this clever little bunny pop up out from another hole and leave the area. We didn’t mind but would allow the dogs to dig for a while and then call them off when they got tired.
I suppose when I am at least 14 years old and we are living in the Kewanee Oil Co., lease house one day, I heard the dogs, we had two bird dogs, besides Bruce, bark a warning. I go to the door and there was a strange dog, who had been walking down the main road by our home. It was acting strange and was trying to enter our driveway.
Each time it started to enter our driveway, Bruce would attack, followed by Joe and Sid. It was a vicious and vigorous fight, and only when the strange dog was forced by our three dogs back out in the main road, would our dogs break of the battle, with Bruce always being the last to quit.
This went or for perhaps 10 to 15 minutes with several attempts by this strange acting dog. Finally, after it was obvious that our three dogs were never going to allow it to enter our property, did this strange animal go on down the road away from our house.
Later, when dad came home, we told him what had happened and he got the shotgun and drove down the road until he found this dog, which we found out later was rabid. He killed it, and the head was sent to Austin for verification of it being rabid.
Dad then said, “Well we have to take Joe and Sid to the Vet’s for shots.” I said, well we must take Bruce too, since he was the first to attack and last to quit the attack, he was the leader in protecting us. Dad was just joking, but finally all our dogs returned home after their successful treatment for rabies.
I must explain my mother always planted a large garden. Also, she had a habit of every evening about dusk wanted to go out and walk through her garden and see how everything was growing. One evening, we go out to the garden and Bruce is along with us. As we enter the gate and start our tour, we all see a jack rabbit who had found a hole in the fence and is in mom’s garden. Now, I don’t know about anyone else’s garden, but it is fatal to mess with ours!
Bruce is in instant pursuit. Now, Mr. Jack in his panic has forgotten where the hole in the fence was, but not Bruce. Even though the jack could run faster, Bruce kept him cut off from escaping through the hole even with his gimp leg. Finally, Bruce caught and killed the jackrabbit. We heap him with paise, and he knew he has done something unusual.
Now there was never a better dog for killing mice and rats than Bruce. We even got a local reputation and would sometimes get invited by neighbor farmers to come eliminate the varmints in their barns or other structures. It was something he really enjoyed doing, and when we would enter the barn and start moving bales of hay, or sacks of feed, he got very excited and knew it was time to do his job! Seldom did anything escape.
However, as teenage boys, we also enjoyed a pastime of fighting the wasps and yellow jackets when we encountered any in any nests in these barns. Bruce had much more sense. He would just back off about 30 yards, sit and watch. He never said a word, but I could tell by his expression that he thought we were nuts!
Bruce died at about age fourteen when I was away in college. No one could ever have a better friend or protector than that little dog. He would never back down. It just proved the saying,
It’s not the dog in the fight, it is the fight in the dog! Just Sayin…RJS
Along when I was about 4 or 5 years old, one night... (
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