 |
| I am not sure you can call this a dog and definitely not a farm dog |
I don't think there was any farm or ranch without a dog but the dog culture is dramatically different today vs. yesterday. We always had a dog and our first, that I remember, was a cocker spaniel. I forgot his name but he was a bouncy happy dog and I use to think the book, "Danial the Cocker Spanial" was about our dog. Most of our dogs were collies, kinda like Lassie, and then there were a few German Shepherds and mutts (mixed breeds). Now you are probably wondering why we had so many dogs. Well that is the story.
It seemed to me that every year we would lose a dog due to natural causes. For example when a dog would get in a fight with a coyote and the coyote won, it would die from natural causes. If our dog got in a fight with a bobcat and died, it was from natural causes. If our dog was at the neighbors house and got in a fight and died it was from natural causes. If our dog got run over by a pickup or the school bus they died from natural causes. Natural causes means: naturally they died due to the situation, get it?Now in case you are not getting the idea what I am saying, dogs get in fights and it is natural or normal. Most of the time they would just come home and lay around for a few days to heal then they would go back out on the hunt.
You see when you grow up on a farm dogs have lots of jobs and some of those jobs are dangerous, kinda like being a soldier. Most of the time the dogs were used to gather cattle but sometimes they were used to keep the coyotes, bobcats, raccoons and any other varmint from getting the livestock or coming around the house. Chickens attracted a lot of pests and almost everyone had chickens. We had a bazillion, that means "a lot". Anyway dogs were needed to protect the chickens and they were a great teaching tool. You see when you have a dog and in particular a boy dog they have a tendency to go out at night and sometimes be gone for a few days. That kinda of reminds me of some of my high school buddies, just kidding.
Dogs disappearing always gave opportunities for children to think of their first question about "the birds and the bees". You see every child wants to know where their dog has gone. I remember dad telling me our dog was hunting for a girl friend. That of course begs the question, "why does he need a girl friend". Sometimes we had girl dogs which attracted boy dogs which would come visiting and in a few months we had puppies. On a farm we never needed the schools/teachers to tell us about sex. It was every where. There were cows and bulls, mares and studs, and rams and ewes, tom cats and female cats and the list goes on and on. Sex was everywhere but the TV, not like today. In fact, remember Dick Van Dyke and Mary Tyler Moore? They did not even sleep together on TV as they had separate beds. Of course this brings up a very political question. When and what is the responsibility of parents to teach their children? It is very tempting to ask a bunch of questions on this topic.
So what do you learn in the Osage?
- dogs teach sex education
- fighting can kill you or your dog
- we don't need the TV to teach sex
Thanks for your time,
gary@thepioneerman.com
No comments:
Post a Comment