I remember the year Scout died. When I found his little broken body I broke down and cried. There was nothing I could do to help him and little else I could do to help me.
For a couple of years he had been a part of our lives. We had found him running the streets of Norman and at the time I would estimate his age at not more than 6 or 9 months. We were crossing through a four-way stop when we saw him ahead of us in the road. I saw him about the same time as She Who Must be Obeyed and she ordered me to stop. “What’s that?” she asked.
“It’s a squirrel,” I said with all the authority I could muster. A dog loose on the street is an open invitation for her to exhibit her prowess as a hunter/gatherer. She hunts down stray dogs and gathers them in to the family. That way she has something to love and shower her attention on and I have something to do. I take care of them. There is nothing in the Code, if there is one, which requires the hunter/gatherers to take care of that which they hunt and gather. There are “hunter/gatherers” and there are “take-care-ofers.” Or whatever we are to be called.
She had brought home a couple of dogs, large dogs, with the only explanation being that her friend had a lab that had a litter of 10 lab/boxer mixed pups. No one wanted them and she needed a home for them. So she brought home 1/5th of the litter. They weren’t very bright dogs, in fact I felt one of them was suffering from more than mere limited curiosity. I still have the other one which isn’t too bright either. But it seems these dogs of limited mental prowess take a particular shine for and toward me.
She had also brought home a beautiful Springer Spaniel she had rescued from running wildly through the streets of a large city during the third day of a wild and furious thunder storm. I had never been exposed to a Springer Spaniel before and was impressed by the beauty of the dogs. She took her to the vet, had her seen after and groomed. She was in pretty good health in spite of her ordeal, she was just old. In fact, she was so old she couldn’t hear and was suffering from well-developed dementia. We brought her home and made her a pallet next to our bed, my side of course. She wasn’t house trained which was the least of her worries. Because in addition to her deafness and dementia, she was also incontinent. My daily routine was get up in the morning and take her outside. She was only around about a month, during which time she never quite got a grip on how to make the two turns from her pallet to our front door without getting lost. For three weeks I fed her the same time each day out of the same bowl at the same location yet she could never find her way to the food. One day I took her outside and got distracted. I looked up and she was gone. She had wandered off. I ran to the neighbors and then drove all around the neighborhood. I don’t know how a dog can get so lost so quickly.
When we saw the squirrel/dog on the road running under and around parked cars She Who Must be Obeyed quickly abandoned her own car and set out after him. I imagined she would capture the thing and we would have another dog on our hands. We were down to three at the time, perhaps four, and we could always use another. He was a beautiful little red Chihuahua. We drove around the neighborhood and asked everyone we saw if they knew of a missing dog. We even posted signs and watched the paper for lost dog notices. There was no news of a missing dog and we could not find any grieving dog owners. He made his home with us and we named him Scout.
Scout turned out to be one of the better dogs we ever saved and had in our home. He was clearly a part of the family. He was an affectionate dog who demanded and received a place of honor. He allowed himself to be held on his terms but usually preferred to sit idly on the couch next to you. He barked when a stranger came on the property but not otherwise. And unlike many Chihuahuas he did not bite. He was not a snippy little dog at all.
He enjoyed being outside with the larger dogs. We had an electric underground fence around the yard and he wore a collar to keep him in. Only once did he run through the fence and get shocked. Usually he was alert to the vibration of the collar as he got close to the invisible line and would return back into the yard before it could shock him. He liked riding in cars and he liked being with you when you were out working in the yard.
A few years ago we had an unusually hard ice storm hit about 1/4th of the state. In that storm we lost nearly all of the trees we had. We lived on 2 ½ acres and loved the place because of all the trees growing on it. After that storm they were nearly all gone. All during the night of the storm we listened as one tree after another exploded, making a loud sounding boom and then a shattering crash to the ground. The next morning the trees looked like so much bombing debris.
I had worked hard sawing limbs into manageable lengths and stacking them in piles so they could be carried off. The devastation was so great that all we had to do was locate them as near the curb as possible and the city, using state and federal FEMA monies to assist, would pick them up one day and take them to a secluded area where they could burn them with the blessings of the EPA.
On that one particular day I was working outside late getting more of the limbs placed in a pile. My daughter, about 9 or 10, was home inside the house. We were the only ones home. I had been working outside until after dark, around 7:30 in the evening. There were large stacks of limbs and trees stacked about the property which was unusual. Usually the area around the house was clear of anything but grass and growing trees. The dogs had been outside with me doing whatever they wanted while I was working. There was no commotion or excitement on their part.
Around 7:30 that evening I had gone into the house. I sat down just for a second when I heard the dogs barking. I decided immediately that before getting too comfortable I needed to get up and let them in. I got up and went to the door where all the dogs but Scout were standing barking, looking off into the direction of a distant creek. One of the dogs ran off into that direction continuing with her barking. I took a head count and knew immediately that Scout was missing and knew what had probably happened.
I ran off toward where Snoopy was looking as she barked, crossed the street and got just onto the neighbor’s property when I came upon a small, still body of a little red dog. He was still wearing his collar. He had just one or two small puncture marks. It looked as if he had been shaken until his neck had broken.
I took him into the emergency vet clinic but it was no good. He was dead when we arrived. I think he might have still been alive when I first found him but he was in serious shock if he was. He didn’t last long, perhaps he died when I held him and cradled him to me.
I would later speculate that a coyote had found shelter behind those piles of brush and limbs and that he had ambushed Scout who had probably never seen anything dangerous in his life. Then, taking him in his mouth, the coyote would have carried him toward the creek but in doing so he would have had to cross the invisible fence. When he ran across the border the collar would have sent a shock and a vibration through Scout and on into the coyote’s mouth. It probably caused him to drop his prey. All of that happened in a matter of seconds.
The family mourned. We all cried for that little squirrel/dog. We all missed him and continue to miss him to this day. We buried him in a little coffin shaped cardboard box the vet gave us to take him home. He was laid to rest in a flower bed in the front of the house where he loved to play. Now and then we think of him and we share a short story about a little red dog that didn’t get to spend near enough time with us and we with him. Someone will start by saying something like, “Do you remember when Scout . . . .”
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