learned quickly which areas they preferred and checked them all on her daily rounds. This left Pam to walk at her own pace while Spot entertained herself with the squirrels. In all of her life, Pam never saw her catch a squirrel and that really wasn’t the point. Spot was directing them back into the trees where they belonged. No one cared about squirrels anyway, they were so plentiful and such a nuisance. Even if she had caught one, no one would’ve cared except if she killed it in front of a child maybe; but that never happened.
Life moved on as it has a habit of doing, and Pam and Spot looked forward to their walk every day. Spot learned to wait at the curb for Pam to get there before crossing the street. At her word, Spot would fire across to the next likely squirrel encounter. She would check the same places every day, like a guard making his rounds and punching his clock. As soon as Spot passed by the squirrels would return, chirping and flicking their tails, no doubt saying to themselves what a nuisance she was, interrupting their busy days of gathering. Pam came to believe that they were deliberately throwing things at them as they walked by but Mark frowned at her when she mentioned this so she quit saying so publicly. It was probably just a coincidence.
During the day Spot would sit and look out the big picture window in the living room of the townhouse. It sat on the side of a steep hill that overlooked the Ohio River. Spot was more interested in the squirrels of course, but she couldn’t do much about them from inside. Every day she would listen with those ears propped up like audial periscopes and she learned the sound of different cars that came and went in the neighborhood. She always knew Mark’s car, and would go to the door to meet him when he came home. She also got to be friends with the postman, and when she heard his little postal truck park up the hill outside, she would go to the door to go out. Pam didn’t realize it for a long time but the postman finally told her one day that Spot delivered the mail with him until he finished the houses on their street, and then walked with him back up to his truck, stopping at her house to come back inside. Most dogs bark at the postman, but Spot was definitely not your typical dog. It was a different world during that time, and leash laws were non-existent, or at least not enforced. People didn’t drive so fast through the neighborhoods and Spot was street smart from the beginning. Every once in a while Pam would let Spot out and then go to get her, and Spot wouldn’t come. Pam would call and call and walk up and down the street a ways looking for her, which usually brought her running full speed, but once in a while she didn’t come. On one of those occasions Pam happened to look across the street, and there was Spot, curled up in the woods where she could watch the front door. Pam decided that maybe she just wanted some fresh air. She wasn’t bothering anyone and she wasn’t in any danger, so she left her alone. A little while later she went to call her and there she was at the door, ready to come in.
After a couple of years of living in the city, Mark and Pam moved back to the South to be near friends and family, and bought a house out in the suburbs. Just before leaving their townhouse they had added another dog to the family, a Great Pyrenees puppy named Abigail. At three months old she was a little polar bear cub of white fur with a few tan spots, her dark chocolate eyes and nose stood out against the white like a seal cub in the snow. Spot was not much impressed. She rarely liked other dogs. She didn’t dislike them either, she just wasn’t interested. At first Spot would use her great speed to run at Abigail and send her tumbling over when they were outside playing. This went on until Abigail was about six months old and getting bigger all the time. One day Spot took off and ran towards Abby, trying to clip her back legs and make her fall over, but this time Abby stood her ground and Spot bounced off. It was the last time she tried that trick. Happily, Spot still had her life’s work ahead of her chasing squirrels. Abigail never chased anything in her whole life so while they tolerated each other you couldn’t really say that they were pals. Abigail, great dog that she was, was a natural protector, and stayed near Pam or Mark, and watched the surrounding areas for potential predators. She was never trained to do this, but her breeding brought with it these natural tendencies. There was one dog in their new neighborhood that Abigail had taken a disliking to, a kind of a red colored dog that might have been some kind of hunting dog. Whenever this dog came near the property Abigail would go to the edge of the driveway and physically block him from coming onto her lot. She used her body to push him back and if that didn’t work she would nip at his rear legs until he got tired of trying to get past her and would turn around and go a different way. One night at about two in the morning Pam was awakened by Abigail barking, which was so unusual that Pam thought something must be really wrong outside. She got up and looked out the window. Across the street some big trucks were unloading machinery to dig up a pipe that had burst, sending water flowing down the street. There was Abigail, standing guard and letting her master know that someone was there that didn’t belong. Pam called her inside and told her what a good dog she was, and went back to bed. Spot slept through the entire episode without even bothering to go look at what was happening. After all, she had to chase squirrels the next day and needed her rest.
2. Spot and the chickens
One day when she arrived home from work, Pam went out to get the girls from their pen. Abigail came to greet her as she always did, but Spot was not there. Pam looked all around the pen and did not see Spot but she did see a big hole in the fence where Spot had dug under and gotten out. Pam gathered some large rocks from the yard and plugged up the hole in the fence and went to find Spot. After calling and walking around the neighborhood for a while, she saw her running flat out, which was very fast, towards home. Pam met her at the door and asked her, hand on hip, why she had broken out of the fence and run away, but Spot only smiled her doggish smile and slunk into the kitchen for her supper. The next few days when Pam went to the pen to get the girls, both Spot and Abigail were there as usual, wagging their tails and sniffing the air, delighted to see her and soon have their supper.
Then one day, Pam came home to find Spot in the driveway waiting for her. But Spot was not alone. All around Spot were white feathers. It looked like she had tried to eat a feather pillow. What had caused this? Spot had killed a chicken! Sure enough, when Pam went to get Abigail and checked the fence, there was the hole just big enough for Spot to get out of, and there were the remains of the chicken that Spot had caught and brought home to eat. Spot had had a plan. And the plan was to get out of the pen while mom was at work and catch herself a chicken. There was an old house not far from the new subdivision out in the country, and Pam had seen some chickens in the yard around the house. That must’ve been where Spot had found them. So Pam cleaned up the mess Spot had made, put both hands on her hips and told Spot what a bad dog she was. Spot was too pleased with herself for catching a chicken to keep from smiling and smirking the whole time while she listened to her mom fuss at her. She remembered how much fun it had been to catch and eat the chicken. Abigail looked from Spot to Pam and was quiet.
Pam fortified all around the fence with rocks so that Spot could not get out, or at least that’s what she thought. And for the next few weeks Spot stayed in her pen and seemed content with the memories of chicken feathers. But soon enough Pam came home and Spot was in the driveway without a chicken this time, but when she went to the pen, Abigail was gone! This time, the fence was dug out like before, but the hole was much bigger; big enough for Abigail to get out too. She must have followed Spot out of the hole. But Abigail was not in the driveway with Spot so Pam went all around the neighborhood calling her name and looking for her, but Abigail did not come. Worried that she might have gotten out of the neighborhood, Pam put Spot in the car and drove up onto the main street to look for her. She drove up and down for several miles, but no Abigail. Mark was out of town on business for a few days, so Pam and Spot went home to their supper, and waited. All that evening, Pam went to the door or looked out the kitchen window to see if Abby had come home. Bedtime and breakfast passed, and Abigail still had not
returned. By now Pam began to be afraid that something very bad had happened. She went to work that day with a heavy heart, leaving Spot in the garage instead of her pen outside. On arriving home again that afternoon, she looked anxiously at the driveway expecting to see her big white dog, but still no Abigail. After letting Spot out for a while, Pam was determined to find her dog if she had to comb the whole neighborhood. She had been gone for more than a day and Pam was very worried by now. Something terrible could have happened; she could be hurt, who knew what might be the case. Pam got in the car and started out again. She drove slowly, looking down alleyways and along the side of the road. Until almost nightfall, she searched the neighborhoods, with no sign of her pet. This was not good; Pam was convinced by now that something terrible had happened. Abigail’s tags were on her collar, so if she had been hit by a car, Pam should have known, since they would have called her from the information on the tags. She could not imagine what could have happened, that