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Farm dog



Scott and I were shooting a video a couple of years back and we came across this little guy. He was guarding a cow barn that didn't particularly look like it need guarding. It upset me to see a young dog like, attached to a short chain, made to live out his life like that.

He was probably a runner. I get that. We had a dog named Susie, a bouncy little Springer Spaniel who had to be on a chain because, when she got loose, she used to chase the neighbor's chickens. And so she remained chained to a dog house where the flies ate at her ears so badly they were painful and raw. I used to take Vaseline and smooth it over her sores. I would spend hours sitting with Susie so she wasn't so lonesome. One night I spent the night with her after my brother kicked me out of the house for wanting to watch television.

Brothers can be such assholes.

Susie was never let in the house, never allowed to run free on our large property. Mom wouldn't let her curl up on my bed.

"She's not that kind of dog," she would say.

Susie was never allowed to get the love she deserved. That's the way I saw it.

One day, I woke up and Susie was gone and the dog house was empty.

I was mad at my mom for a long time about what happened to Susie.

I told mom I never wanted another dog, and I didn't get another one until I was 30.

What kind of thing is that to do to a dog, or a kid?

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Comments

  1. momkat90907 August 2013 at 12:25

    When I was about 8, my parents gave me a puppy. It was a black lab and I named her Daphne. She was relegated to the basement of our 3 bedroom, 1 bath house in suburban Kansas City, Missouri. She grew fast. Dad was raised in a Brooklyn tenement. So, puppy got very little useful information about what to do and got booted out the back door frequently. Dad built her a house with siding that matched our house and installed a chain, as there was no fence. The house was at the far corner and winter was coming. Mom bought a dog food that you add hot water to and it was supposed to make it delicious. I trekked out to her little house and sat in her house while she ate in the mornings before I went to school. One day, she got loose and ran for hours. I chased her for hours. Sore, frozen and exhausted from crying, I went home and she was there, by her little house. When I went to school on Monday, I came home and she was gone. Dad told me he took her to 'live on a friend's farm in the country'. I'm almost 50 and I still think about that dog. And my dad still has not developed the character to tell me the truth.

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