Bear The Dog

The golden lab I gave Mac to help ease the pain of Sheba’s death was a mistake on my part, he rejected the poor animal from day one.  The notion that Sheba could be replaced upset Mac, and it appeared that my surprise birthday gift was a huge flop.  Sophie didn’t help matters  by chewing everything in sight, and when she destroyed Mac’s new leather shoes he flew into such a rage I feared for the puppy’s life.

This animosity changed the day Sophie gave birth to eight black puppies; Mac had bred her with a purebred rottweiler and was delighted with the result.  He petted Sophie and thanked her for the pups, and from that day forward Mac accepted the golden lab. He would never love her the way he had loved Sheba, but she was the mother of his rottweilers and was therefore tolerated.  He had the puppies’ tails cropped, and to me they looked like eight perfect black labs with no tails!

Mac wanted to keep one of the male pups, and watched as they grew to determine which dog was the pick of the litter. One puppy in particular was funny to watch at mealtime, he always got to the bowl first and growled as he ate.  The other pups, warned by the growls, held back until their brother had finished eating.  Mac decided to keep the “growler”, and named him BEAR.

Bear was a loveable dog, but he was also the scourge of the neighborhood.  As far as Mac was concerned Bear could do no wrong, and he turned a blind eye whenever the dog misbehaved.  Our property wasn’t fenced back then, and Bear ran off frequently in his quest for neighborhood sheep.  He was huge, over 125 pounds of pure muscle, and a tethered sheep or goat stood little chance when he pounced.  Soon our phone was ringing, upset neighbors wanted to be compensated for their dead animals, and I wrote more than a few cheques because of Bear’s blood lust.  Mac, not willing to admit that Bear was a problem, insisted that Sophie encouraged him to hunt.  While it was true that Sophie accompanied Bear on his killing sprees, it was the big black dog people talked about with wide eyes.  Mac’s rottweiler was a killer, and as far as I was concerned, the dog was a costly embarrassment.

One day I heard a commotion on the hillside across from our house. Old Nicky was shouting, “Mac Simmons! Mac Simmons!”  Nicky lived alone in a tiny shack near the top of the hill, and I often watched the elderly man as he tethered his sheep and fed his pig. When I heard him crying, “Mac Simmons! Mac Simmons!” I immediately looked for Bear and Sophie, and with a sinking heart realized why Nicky was distressed. Bear and Sophie had once again run off, and I knew exactly where they had gone.

Mac refused to deal with the situation, and sat on the porch as Nicky called, “Mac Simmons! Mac Simmons!”  I begged him to go and see the man, and to pay for the animal that had obviously been killed by our dog, but he just sat and glowered while the old man shouted his name.  I felt badly, Nicky loved the animals he tended, and I wished Mac would DO something other than glower and sulk!  As the sun began to set the wails from the shack on the hill stopped, and I set off down the hill towards the Pizzeria.

As I approached the bottom of our drive-way I understood why Nicky’s wailing had stopped, the old man had been busy!  There was a dead sheep spread across our gap, and I didn’t have to guess whose sheep it was.