Chapter Ten --- "Katy"

Katy was a Miniature Dachshund that we bought as an eight-week-old pup.  We already had an outside dog, but now for the first time we were going to keep a dog in the house.  She was a hit right from the start—such an odd-looking little thing with a double-length body and half-length legs.  Before getting her we read all about the breed and discovered that they were originally bred in Germany to be badger hunters.  Their unique body shape had been developed for entering badger holes, grabbing them by the nose,  and dragging them out.  The literal translation for dachshund is badger-dog.  The miniatures like Katy were bred down from the standard size, and are most often acquired for pets, not hunting.

Katy the little weiner dog.  

A fine specimen of her miniature breed, Katy was amazingly agile.  You’d think a dog of that size and shape couldn’t jump, but she had no trouble at all racing through the house and leaping gracefully from the floor onto our bed from a surprising distance.  Her tiny little legs compensated for their length by moving twice as fast.  The only thing about her that bothered us was that she didn’t take to visiters as well as we had hoped.  She didn’t yap at them like a Chihuahua might, but just didn’t care to be handled by them.

Katy was not quite two years old when we relocated to the dairy farm in Southern Ohio, and she happily moved with us, quickly adapting to life in the old farmhouse.  She took great interest in the rodents that for a time inhabited our home—proving to us that she might really be of some practical use, other than as a living ornament.

It wasn’t long before she really came into her own.  She had taken to disappearing outside at times, and we would search frantically for her.  But she would be nowhere in sight.  The first time we realized what she was up too, was when we heard muffled barking from somewhere on the hill below our house.  Mike went to take a look and called for me to come.

“Dad! Katy’s down in a groundhog hole, and I can’t get her out.”

I ran down to take a look, and sure enough she was in there.  We could hear her snuffling and barking, but couldn’t coax her out.  I thought sure she must be stuck.  It seemed we would have to carefully dig her out, when to our surprise she backed out on her own. A little bulb lit up in my head.

“Mike, she’s doing what dachshunds were bred to do!  She’s following her instincts to hunt for badgers!”

In this case, her badgers happened to be a slightly smaller version of burrowing animal—the common groundhog.  She didn’t bring a groundhog out of the hole that time, but before too many days she disappeared again.  We searched around the hillside below our house, but couldn’t find her anywhere.  We stood perplexed, gazing around and listening carefully.  From somewhere distant we could hear her barking.  The sound seemed to be coming from far across the pasture.  Then we saw her.  A small reddish-brown spot on a bank out across the pasture, and close to her another darker brown spot.  Both were moving rapidly, darting at each other.  A chill went down my spine when I realized that a groundhog of this size might kill my little dog.  I ran to the house, grabbed my rifle, and raced across the pasture as fast as my legs carry me.  But I didn’t get there in time to use the gun.  Katy had already done it.  She stood over the lifeless critter, panting heavily, with a look of deep satisfaction on her face.

“Good job, Katy,” I said, still not believing my eyes.  “Are you alright?”

I gave her a thorough inspection, and there wasn’t a scratch anywhere.  How she managed to kill the groundhog beats me, but she had gone into its hole, drug it out, and fought it to the finish. I felt a new respect for our little dog, and although it seemed likely that she might get hurt with a hobby like this, how could I not let her do what she was born to do?

Then there was the problem of Ace, the little black stray that had become part of our family.  We loved him, but he complicated matters.  I did NOT want mixed breed pups.  Katy was registered, and we hoped to raise and sell purebred puppies.  It was tough to keep the two little dogs apart, so when Katy came into heat, we kept her in the house, and only let her go outside to the bathroom—keeping a very watchful eye on her.  Her heat cycle came and went, and we were satisfied that our efforts in keeping them separated had been successful.

Within a couple weeks Ace disappeared.  We searched around and called him, but he didn’t come.  This was really unusual.  He always slept on the back porch, and never missed a chance to go to the barn with me on the three-wheeler.  I worried about him, but reminded myself again, that he wasn’t really ours anyway.  Maybe he had finally gone home—wherever that was.

Later that day, I learned where Ace had gone, and it was a sad day at our house.  He had apparently tried to cross the road, and met a tragic end.  He lay as if asleep in the ditch.  I asked Mike to dig a hole for him down over the bank from the house.  He chose a nice shady spot under a wild cherry tree—near where the kids often played.  I brought Ace’s body to the hole, and was surprised to see how neatly Mike had dug it.  The hole was squared off on the sides and bottom, and every loose crumb of dirt had been removed.  I gently laid Ace into the hole as someone next to me started crying.  And then another, and another.  My three children stood around the hole trying to come to terms with this unplanned end of our little black friend.  I felt really sad too, but wasn’t going to shed any tears.  That’s when I learned that sometimes a person has no control over the emotions that are normally tucked carefully away in a safe place.  I felt a great sob force its way out—and wrapping my arms around my children—together we said a tearful good-bye.  Mike said he would cover up little Ace’s body, so we waited there until a neat mound of dirt covered the hole.  Then Betsy put a small wooden cross in the ground, and we trudged sadly back up the hill.

Life wasn’t the same without my little black companion.  He had turned into a really helpful guy to have around.  It had been especially fun to have him ride on the three-wheeler with me and guard the gates while I fed the heifers.  But he was gone and nothing was going to change it.

Within about a week of Ace’s untimely demise we started noticing something strange.  Katy seemed to be filling out.  It couldn’t be.  We had watched her carefully, and there was no chance in the world that she could be expecting puppies.  Maybe this was a false pregnancy.  Wrong!  Within several more weeks, there was absolutely no question about it; Katy was going to have Ace’s puppies.  It was really baffling to know how or when they had managed to connect, but here was living proof that they had found a way.   The little dog grew and grew until her belly nearly scraped the ground—which wasn’t exactly surprising, considering how close to the ground she was to begin with.

At this time, Katy had taken to sleeping with Betsy.  We didn’t know exactly when her puppies were due, but thought we could probably tell when the time was close.

Wrong again.

One morning in the wee hours, Betsy came down to our bedroom and informed us that her bed was wet.  And she said she felt something at her feet.  We went up to investigate, and the bed was more than wet.  Pulling the covers back all the way, we found three little brown squirming puppies.  Katy, who seemed to be a little confused by this turn of events, had followed Betsy downstairs, ignoring the little family of three that she should have been nursing.

Well, no way could Katy raise the pups in a bed, so we immediately moved her and the nice little family to a cage in the laundry room.  Juanita managed to get her to lay down, and held the pups up to her until each one had nursed a little.  Katy still looked confused—but concerned too—so we thought that she and the pups would be all right for a couple hours while we went back to bed.

The pup’s birth had happened on a Sunday morning, and it was my weekend off, so thankfully we could sleep in a little.  Sometime after daybreak we all stirred, and of course everyone wanted to see the puppies.  I wanted to be first, so I hurried to the laundry without getting dressed, wearing nothing but my undies.   I walked over to the cage, and quietly opened the door.  Now something must have taken place in the last couple hours, because I noticed a complete change in Katy’s countenance.  What had earlier appeared to be confusion, now registered as rabid fury.  She stood to her feet and glared at me as if I had become the mortal enemy.  Her hackles raised and she seemed to grow much larger than her ten-pound body.

I tried to console her with gentle words, but it only provoked her wrath to greater heights.  I watched with growing concern as her lips curled upward menacingly, and her teeth doubled in size.  Then her voice rumbled like something you might expect from a grizzly bear.  All signals were saying, “KEEP AWAY FROM MY BABIES!!”

‘Now what?’ I wondered.  I tried speaking soothingly to her again, and slowly reached towards the pups.  That’s when she exploded from her cage and viciously attempted to attack my bare legs and feet.  I leaped backward in shock, turned around and ran.

It was no good!  My speed was no match for this fearless, man-eating, thoroughly enraged miniature grizzly intent on protecting her young.  She would be having me for breakfast unless I came up with a very quick maneuver.   Without a seconds hesitation I leapt for the only place where she couldn’t reach me—the kitchen table.  And there I crouched on all fours atop the table, staring down unbelievingly at a very furious Katy.  The rest of the family were standing in the kitchen too—staring in shock at the developing drama.  They had escaped her wrath by just holding still.

Katy turned to go back to the pups, then stopped in mid-stride and looked back over her shoulder with one more long, threatening glare.  In my mind I heard her speak very distinctly, “AND YOU BETTER STAY UP THERE TOO!!”

(Not Katy.  Borrowed photo.)

By the time she had crawled back in with her little ones, it seemed safe to disengage myself from the tabletop.  The only thing hurt from the unexpected incident was my sense of pride.  It was dropping to a new low as my entire family lurched around holding their sides—totally unable or unwilling to control their laughter—even in the face of my narrow escape from certain death.  I didn’t see the humor in it myself, just then.

Perhaps we should have just let Katy go with that, but we really wanted to check her and the pups to make sure everything was alright.  After getting dressed—including shoes—we carefully managed to get a wastebasket down over her, separating her from the pups.  We lifted the cute little brown creatures out of the cage and sent each of the children away with one.  Then we lifted the basket to see how Katy would respond.  She took a quick glance around, and looked plaintively—almost tearfully—at us, as if to ask, “Where are my babies?  What is happening to me?”

The change was unbelievable.  So we checked her over, and all seemed fine.  We put the basket back over her and returned the pups, two of which had now magically acquired names.  Derek called his “Ralph,” and Betsy’s had become “Snicklefritz.”  The one Mike held remained anonymous for a while longer.

It took a couple more days until Katy’s state of mind improved.  We used the wastebasket when necessary, until she was ready to rejoin our family.  She was a good little momma, and raised the puppies with no problems.  Within six weeks, we had three very active, adorable, lengthy brown clones with short legs, bouncing around the house, and entertaining us with their wild antics.  It would be difficult to see them go, but keeping them was not an option.

Snicklefritz, Ralph, and Laser.

In the meantime we had decided that Katy probably wasn’t the right dog for us.  Her continuing dislike of visitors—which seemed to be getting worse with age—coupled with her whelping atrocities, left us with the growing conviction that it would be unwise to spread her genetics.  So it was with both a measure of sadness and relief that we sold her.  At the same time, we found homes for two of the pups—Ralph and Snicklefritz. Now we were down to one, and the kids tearfully begged to keep him.  Especially Mike.

“Mom said we could keep a puppy if we sold Katy!”

“She did?”  I didn’t remember that part of the deal.

“Please dad, we just have to keep this puppy!”

I loved the pup too, but didn’t want the children to know it.  Then I caved.

“Well . . . okay, I guess the pup can stay.”

We named the little guy “Laser,” and he became everything we wanted.  Having a very amiable personality like his daddy, and the fantastically good looks of his momma, he happily fulfilled his mission as our new pet and companion.