I find myself sitting here at the computer, a few good bourbons with just enough coke to give it a darker shade, and I am cleaning out some old files, moving some to an archive, and generally looking at things I have not seen in three to five years minimum. Anyway, it was with a tinge of sadness that I came across the picture that follows. That ugly dog, and yes, I fully agree he was ugly, as that is what you get when a Australian Shepard is crossed with a Terrier. Anyway, his name was Walker. Walker Dog to be specific. He had a funny step that reminded me of my Tennessee Walker Horse at the time (another blog deserved to be posted about Special Dark, aka SD).
Anyway to make a long story short, Walker came from a horse sale back when I lived in Virginia. I paid a heck of a fee of $5.00 for him. He was very hungry and probably destined to a worse fate if I hadn’t picked him up at the last moment as a little pup. It just happened that I had a cheeseburger from McDonald’s that had not been eaten yet with me. So that is why Bitzer (the current dog was taught that those are good), as he got that as a treat when I had him sitting there during the rest of the horse sale.
Longer story – Walker was my buddy and just as well behaved as Bitzer. He would stay inside at night during the cold of the winter and never even thought about peeing inside, much less anything else. He always wanted to be very pleasing and though not as much of a truck dog as Bitzer, he did like to go with me to places.
He did have a hard lesson with the horses though – as he got a good kicking when just a pup and went end over end looking much like a brown soccer ball. That taught him the lesson though as he generally didn’t ever bother the horses after that.
After a few years, and one move that he adjust okay with in Virginia, we moved to Kentucky. He was happy with that once he settled. The farm that we bought when we moved had two barns, one a tobacco barn and one built specifically for pigs. Rather then trying to convert the low roof to anything, after a few months I saw some weanling piglets for sale for pretty cheap. I bought about four or five of them for between $15-$30 a piece, one of which was particularly runt.
Now hindsight says that all those smoked pig ears in the past was just too much for Walker. But anyone in one night he got a hold of one pig and just ripped it apart, the runt if I remember right. I put him up and locked up the pig barn (with the knobs mind you – not a physical lock). Early the next morning I told Walker to leave the pigs alone, as I had paid good money for them. Well it took him all of about an hour to get in the barn and run them out through a crack. By the time I saw him, he had killed one more and had another injured beyond help.
I was extremely mad at this point. I thought about it for a few minutes. Weighed both Walker having to be tied or chained up versus running free like had always done and the cost of him – $5.00 versus the over $60 something the pigs had cost that would have long term been worth $900 or so.
I will not say more on that other then to say when I came across the picture of him I sure had a pang of regret about my actions that day. Anyway, I raise my glass one last time to salute his memory!
** Originally published on Mephistos on 9th of April, 2008.