Dogs’ short lives are constantly proving that they are “man’s best friend.” They are loyal and obedient if their master does their part.
Our first dog was Bowser. She was a border collie / Australian shepherd cross. We got her about the time we moved to the farm. She didn’t like to go in vehicles. She never came into the house. She never left the place except for when she followed Dawn’s dad six miles when he hauled a load of oats to a neighbor’s place to use their batch dryer. It’s a mystery.
Our farrowing house held 12 sows. The overflow went into a little hut in a yard outside. The kids always helped catch the baby pigs for Dawn for processing (castration, needle teeth clipping, and vaccinations). Six-year-old Gretchen was carrying a squealing piglet when the sow, being a good mother, knocked her down and was on top of her. Before we could think, Bowser was over the fence and biting into that sow’s neck. She saved our little girl. That is loyalty.
It’s often said that dogs serve us, while cats are served by us. But like Bowser’s trip to Delbert’s, there are exceptions. We used to have cats. Smokers and Chunk (named by Gretchen) were often seen carrying a mouse. I don’t know where Old Feller came from but if you picked him up, it felt like he’d been run over a few times and the bones set themselves randomly like a Picasso. Our oldest kid, Hans, now calls me Old Feller, and I feel like it.
Once, I was combining soybeans near the house in the dark and saw Smokers dart out from in front of the combine head. The next day, Smokers had no tail. Chunk was a small cat, but I saw her dragging a rabbit past the machine shed door that was bigger than she. It’s weird that I saw her by the corner one day and she looked me in the eye as if to say goodbye. We never saw her again.
Years later, after we quit pigs, we fed the cats in the boar building. We had a piece of an old hog feeder that we put the cat food on and 21 cats would swarm all over that thing like they were good cats after a mouse. It was like the old story of the progression of generations. They just waited for the human to bring their food. That was it.
We have a blue heeler now. Anyone who knows about heelers knows that it is rare to have cats in the same place. The machine shed had the only dry, loose dirt all winter and that’s where I worked on machinery. I didn’t miss the cats and still don’t.
Bowser lived to a good age but developed a softball-sized tumor on her spleen. Dawn is tough. She watched as Bruce operated, cutting and stitching to control the bleeding. Then blood flowed. Bowser went into shock, jerking around. Dawn held her head trying to calm her. Bruce caught up. She pulled through. We need each other.
We had another year with her. Then the cancer was back and she allowed us to bring her into the bathroom for the night. She went into the shower to die, not wanting to make a mess for her people.
We were young and training a dog was not our thing. Consistency helped but it was the love of a dog that overcame impulsive, destructive behavior. Loyalty and obedience are a product of love.
In public life that affects us all, loyalty and obedience can be bought. Here are some numbers regarding donations from groups supporting Israel:
Senator Charles Grassley $331,397
Senator Joni Ernst $595,161
Representative Randy Feenstra $106,694
People are generally loyal and obedient to each other until they are in the government where the use of force is accepted. Then they exploit that power.
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