This Thursday marks the first of many, I hope, in my professional effort to write about a specific person, a specific topic, on a specific day, inspired by and to honor my dad.
Also known as John, Johnny Walleye, Mr. B, Johnny, Juan, and… Â Â Â I can’t write what his brothers, my uncles, used to call him, when we would show up at grandma’s house for the weekend. Ha.
Hunting dogs. Gotta love em’.
My dad had lots of dogs over the years. With names like Casey, Porky and a little boss Jack Russell Terrier named Rusty, with only one eye, he may have been my moms though. Some were coonhounds, some were English Springers and of course the Jack Russell. I did too when I was little. The scenario usually went like this. It would be the start of summer time, and I, being all of 9 or 10 years old, would walk downtown and run smack dab into a flea market.
It just dawned on me why they might call them a flea market.
It may be because that is where I would always find a box of puppies being given away for free, fleas and all. A big black Husky once, a little Black Lab female I named Shorty and another time a very fine looking Gordon Setter looking pup, with some questionable parentage. I loved em’ all. For a summer or two. Then one day, or probably longer, I would finally notice the dog was gone. My mom would always say she took them out to the country and gave them to a farmer. Now, being older and a father myself, and having owned multiple animals, from snapping turtles to cats and dogs, I know what that could mean.
But, I loved my mom, still do, and she was from the country and knew lots of folks with farms… so lets just say she told me the truth. Seemed like my mom always ended up taking care of the animals, for as long as we seemed interested in them I guess, so I guess she had the right to drop them off at the farm if she wanted to.
The dog that stands out the most though, and is kinda famous in our family, is a female runt of a yellow lab, that my dad said his friend who had the litter, his friend didn’t have the litter… his female yellow lab had the litter, and she threw a runt. She was the only one left and no one wanted her, he offered her to my dad free of charge, I believe, because who would think she would ever amount to anything anyway.
Her name was… Brandy.
A dirty yellow haired, female, Labrador, that turned out to be the huntinest, frisbee catchinest, dog fightinest, scaring the neighbor kidsnest, terrified I believe is the word my sisters best friend would use, cat chasinest, with the biggest personality and who would knock you right off your feet when you would run her and would hack off my dads friend who gave her to him. When they would hunt with her she would sneak up on the pheasants, do a flash point, flush the bird on her own and most times… snag the bird right out of midair and nobody would get to shoot!
My dads brother Lorenzo passed away last year in November. I had talked with him a few weeks before that and no matter when we would talk he would always end up laughing so hard telling stories about that damn dog.
I haven’t run into another dog like that, ever.
Leave a Reply