Maybe 15 years ago, Chester and I got up early to deliver a bench to Batesville, Arkansas, made from a headboard I had artistically painted.
Stopping for breakfast while traveling used to be one of our favorite joys. Batesville has a very nice restaurant for breakfast right off the highway with friendly, welcoming folks. When we were done, our waitress said her grandbabies just arrived outside if we wanted one, then corrected to “well, actually my fur grandbabies.” Next thing Chester saw was me walking toward the truck carrying a little ball of fur with a white tip on his tail. I named him Painter because he looked like he had dipped his tail in my art supplies.
Painter, a small terrier-hound mix, grew up in Sumner escaping the fence and wandering the woods along the Cassidy where wild things roam.
One early afternoon, Chester and I were sitting on our front porch and saw Painter carting a dead squirrel by the neck almost as big as he was. I promise you he was prancing proud down the middle of the street toward us but stopped a house away and looked at us dead in the eyes apparently reading our expressions. He looked toward the bayou then toward us again, then kept coming down the middle of the street to the front of our house. looked at us again, looked at the bayou again, then made a right turn into the bayou knee-deep facing us. He proceeded to “baptize” the squirrel, dunking him three times under water then bringing the cleansed trophy and laying him at my feet to receive his praise. He received much praise before we dispatched the trophy out of Painter’s sight. And that’s the truth.
About a year ago, a young black lab appeared abandoned at the end of our gravel road in the shade of a pecan grove. I was asked who he belonged to and, of course, that got my attention about how to save the lab. I carried food to him, I carried water to him — a quarter-mile away, mind you — but I made it my business. I didn’t have enough to do with two dogs and two cats and a husband who needed my care.
I wasn’t intending to give the dog a name, really, and I wasn’t intent on keeping him. I thought he had been separated from his hunter owner because he was dragging a partial rope tied to a nice collar. I posted, I called vet offices, I tried talking to all kinds of folks. Then I got tired of carting the food and water a quarter mile and thought I’d coax him to my house to save time and energy. I really didn’t want to keep him. But I had to talk baby talk to him like “come on sweetie,” so it just evolved that I kept calling him Sweetie.
Chester is sitting in his recliner by this year and not too active with what’s going on out on the two acres left of the farm. With no front porch in Tutwiler like we used to have in Sumner, a person can hide a big black lab right under your nose before you know it.
Well, I walked down the quarter mile with a dog dish of food and talked baby talk, “Come on sweetie,” until I got him to our yard and put the dish down, then water.
Labs like water, so he was perfectly happy wallowing in the ditch water and drinking where the crops were being watered. He would show up for his food but the ant would have made a line to inside his bowl and he learned to tip his dish over.
When it got cold, I gave him a blanket he would carry to different places and sleep on. I had a house built for him but he rejected it. Taking him to the vet only to see if he had a chip to read and maybe heartworms, they asked for his name and I said “Sweetie.” I had to call him something even if I wasn’t trying to keep him.
Not a problem, except Sweet is Chester’s name for me. Not a problem unless we are both in the same room at a time. Not a problem if the now big black lab stays outside like a promised yard dog. Not a problem unless there is an ugly ice storm.
Sweetie likes being outside most of the time, and he guards our two acres and some surrounding ones against all mail and delivery trucks. He likes his own kiddie wading pool. He doesn’t like being separated from the small dogs by their fenced yard. He is the night watchman and takes his job seriously, especially against opossums — barking until I get out of bed to break up the nonsense.
Once finding a mama playing possum with five babies outside her pouch. I promptly picked them up. put on her belly and she curled inward while I gathered her up and carried her to underneath the shed. Don’t even bother asking me what I was thinking picking up an opossum with my bare hands in a night gown after midnight. Those things have big teeth and growl, but they play possum so convincingly I guess I wasn’t worried. Next time it happened, I did throw a towel over it before I picked it up and now reward it with watermelon rinds, tossing them under the shed.
Fast-forward, Sweetie comes inside the house to eat now, I pour his food out on a tray because he kept tipping over his bowl looking for ants. He has three dog beds but will sleep inside all day long on my bed with our biggest cat Patchy, who is in charge of the house. Sweetie knows this and follows Patchy inside and outside in line. And that’s the truth.
I had some hostas I separated and put around a tree along our drive trying to make a little children’s garden with figurines I had, irises from a friend’s yard and some other bulbs. I looked and it appeared that the squirrels or Sweetie had dug up the bulbs and left the holes.
Cleaning out my freezer of six small frostbitten ears of corn. I thought the birds or squirrels would enjoy them since I gave the watermelon to the opossums. Well, they stayed in the yard a while untouched until walking to the mail box I passed the little hosta garden and down in the hole where the bulbs had been were ears of corn. I left them — Why not? — just like the volunteer 3-foot-tall sunflower blooming in the crack where the driveway meets the side patio, a leftover from bird seed.
We all share this land nature owns. Keep it joyful with responsible pet ownership, spay and neuter your animals. Adopt pets from shelters and rescue them when possible.
Let your big hearts give to pet shelters and those caring for pets where no shelters are available. Keep pets comfortable in heat and cold in fenced yards, not tied or chained to trees, please.
