They were all special...the last of a line from Puddin', a Hanging Tree cattle dog from Texas, who could work circles around even the fastest 4-wheelers. It was almost as if, at night, long after we'd gone to bed, she would sneak into the kitchen and read over the lists of cattle to be moved. We'd head out for a day's work and she'd be gone, over the hill. By the time we got to the top, she'd be there to greet us, already having gathered half the cows and convinced them they'd much rather be in the working pens than munching on dewy, knee deep grass. Tongue lolling out as she grinned at us with that "Aren't you proud?" look, she'd turn and race to round up the other half before we could tell her we had the ones we needed already.
I'm not sure why I always called her "baby girl" when I was sweet talking her. For some reason, she seemed like she needed more care. Born last of a litter of eleven, almost an hour after her closest sibling had seen the light of day, here came little Tucker, barely bigger than my clinched fist and making no effort to suck in the life-giving oxygen she needed so badly. After much squeezing on her chest and more than I could count puffs of breath down her tiny throat, she began breathing on her own and squirming for sustenance at her mama's nipples. She appeared to be blue... not from a lack of oxygen by that point, but truly blue-haired from her nose to the tip of her tail. Batman, Magic, Heart, Red Man, ...I've forgotten most of their names. But Tucker stuck with me.
Then, the unimaginable happened. Just as these precious little critters reached weaning age and were set to begin their ventures as "Christmas puppies", I got the shock of finding a baby skunk, dead, inside their pen. Being a knot-head who always "tries to do the right thing", I called the Health Department to see if there were any concerns that a dead skunk was in the pen with my perfect Christmas puppies. Turned out, there were a lot of concerns...A WHOLE LOT.
Within an hour, I had several trucks in my yard with big round official-looking decals on the doors. White suited investigators charged into my dog pen, kicking at the puppies as if they were too dangerous to touch. It seemed as if, in their minds, all the puppies had to be destroyed or surely they would expose every resident in our county to rabies. Thankfully, my old-fashioned country vet demanded that we follow the Texas protocol for rabies... vaccines every week for 5 weeks, total isolation for 180 days in a double-walled pen, no exposure to people....none. Or they would be euthanized.
I didn't have a choice. For the next six months, the puppies and I explored the back pasture and woods...walking while listening carefully for the return of any official who might declare that we'd broken the "isolation" rule and the pups, now half grown, would be put to death.
We survived. The puppies grew into beautiful cattle dogs and found good working homes. All except Tucker...my little runt of the litter who stayed blue and stayed by my side for almost 13 years, biting unwary Amazon delivery drivers and snapping at any UPS driver who had the audacity to offer a tasteless tidbit to distract her from her duties as guardian of the grandboys. She was with me at the barn each morning feeding horses and long nights when Neil was out of town. Growling fiercely each time a twig snapped or the wind whistled through the trees. Riding cheerfully with me to the trash dump, to check on calves in the back pasture, to the empty fair grounds to make sure no litter was left in the parking areas. She guarded me.
Until today. She just couldn't go any longer. I want to believe she's running at the Rainbow Bridge, biting the Amazon drivers and chasing cats and ponies and calves to her heart's content. Bye, Tucker. "Til we meet again.
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