Brigette

[WV Sawmiller]

Brigette

             “Is that a cocker spaniel?” I asked.

              “Yes, it is” the young lady replied as she stroked the soft blonde ears of the quivering, white, 6-week old puppy. We were at a Wal-Mart gas station in Lewisburg WV and the young lady was at the pump next to mine with an obviously newly acquired puppy

             “You know you’re breaking my heart” I told her. “I had one that looked just like it when I was 15-16 years old” realizing suddenly that was nearly 55 years ago. “Her name was Brigette.”

             I don’t know why at 14-15 years old I had to have a cocker spaniel but I did. You’d have thought I’d have wanted a hound or a beagle or a German shepherd or maybe a collie like Lassie who was popular at the time. Maybe Lady and the Tramp was a popular Disney cartoon at the time and might have been showing reruns or something but I wanted a cocker spaniel. I searched the Pensacola Journal classifieds and soon found someone advertising Cocker Spaniel pups for sale. I think they were about $35 or so. I had probably earned the purchase money picking up pop bottles or pecans or though other odd jobs. We called and got the address and Dad took me to the home in the suburbs of Pensacola where the man told me he had one female puppy left. He brought out the little white bundle with blonde ears, ¾” of her tail already docked and buff markings on her body and tail. The owner put her down on the linoleum floor and she promptly peed on it. While he cleaned up with a wet bath towel she found and started playing with my shoestrings and tugged on the ones to my heart. I had to have her. I was a little suspicious as I only thought Cocker Spaniels were solid blonde or black as that was all I had ever seen. She had the long curly Blonde hair on her ears and feathers on the backs of her legs but did not have the long flowing hair on her sides and instead had much shorter white hair. I always suspected she was more Springer Spaniel than Cocker but by the time I realized the confirmation issues she was already secure in her place in our family. Her size was always right for a standard cocker as were her head and ear shapes and such.

             I remember we got her home and she spent a few nights in a cardboard box at the foot of my bed. She was obviously missing her mom and we tried comforting her with old towels for a bed and even put a loud wind up ticking alarm clock in there with her for company. I guess she got over her loneliness pretty soon and moved to the front porch. We did not allow dogs in the house except for very young, sick or short special occasions.

             My memories of Brigitte get real splotchy after that. I know I spent every available moment with her after school and took her everywhere with me. I remember when I’d call her it was always with a loud “Kiiipoo” and if she was in tall grass somewhere she’d bounce up like she had springs for legs and ”Pronging” as she bounced around  trying to locate me and would always come. I remember teaching her to “Sit” and if she did something wrong and started to run away I’d sternly yell “Sit” and she’d immediately stop and sit down. Of course then I could not discipline her because she had done what I’d just commanded her to do. Maybe she knew she could get by with it (and she did). I remember I bought a silent dog whistle at our local shoe shop and I trained her to come to it. It was funny to see her working in a field below and I’d blow the whistle and no sound but she’d jump up and start bouncing her way back to me.

             I know I took her hunting small game with me and she was turning out to be a pretty fair rabbit dog on a hot trail. I’d shoot squirrels over her and she’d grab them but I don’t remember her ever treeing one.

             A buddy of mine told me about a great spot to hunt doves over on the K roads by the prison camp. Evidently they had straightened out a wide dirt road and the abandoned bend was a good place to ambush doves in the early September season. We were driving to it so I was either 15-16. Mom and Dad were pretty free with me driving with just my learner’s permit on the local county roads. Anyway while driving with the prison road camp with 8’ chain link fence with 3 rows of barbed wire on the top on one side and a field of yellowing soybeans on the other a cottontail rabbit sitting on the side of the road suddenly darted into the beans. We stopped and I yelled at Brigette to get him and she took off in hot pursuit yipping often. They were running straight away into the beans but we knew it would turn so my buddy ran ahead of the truck and ran to the rear. I could see the beans weaving and hear Brigitte’s excited yipping and they turned toward me. I ran as fast as I could to cut off the rabbit and it darted out into the wide deserted clay road and I snapped a shot at it with my 20 gauge Remington WingMaster pump and spun him around with a load of #8 dove shot but he got up and ran under the prison camp fence with Brigette in hot pursuit. She caught him about 20 yards later and he let out a loud death squeal that would be the joy to any predator hunter. Brigette would not bring him to us so we climbed the fence and broke into the prison and retrieved our hard earned rabbit and climbed back over.

             It may have been later that Fall I took her to an old cut-over patch of land on the hillside a mile or so from my home with 2-3 year old tree tops. It looked like prime rabbit hunting but turned out to be it was residence to a bunch of woodcock. Brigette worked close like I later learned Spaniels are supposed to do and flushed a number of woodcocks about 25-30 yards from me. I don’t remember how many, if any, I killed but it was a beautiful time to be in the field with a hardworking partner.

             I took Brigette to a friend’s house about a mile away one morning and we were going to go hunt for rabbits in his pasture and in a bunch of cutover timber adjacent to it. It was a good spot for both cottontail and swamp rabbits.  We got out and walked to the back side of his pasture and suddenly I heard Brigette’s loud and excited barking and thought she had jumped a rabbit but she stopped. We walked over to where we last heard her and saw the electric fence shaking. We called and called but she never answered or came back. I had always come there by car and knew Brigette did not know her way home so we were really worried about her. We called for a couple of hours and finally I told my buddy to keep watch for her and I’d look for her along the road. I got home and Brigette was on the porch with the saddest look on her face as if to say “Please don’t ever take me to that awful place again.” I still don’t know how she knew her way home but obviously she did.

             I remember taking her with me squirrel and duck hunting along a flooded oxbow lake near home. When I got there I heard the distinctive splashing sound like someone throwing a big log into the backwater. It was a beaver swimming upstream and a buddy had told me he wanted any I could kill. The beaver swam about 30 yards or so from the bank where I was standing and I shot him in the head and face with a load of #6 shot. It started thrashing and swimming toward me mortally wounded. When wounded like that a beaver, in my experience, will try to climb out on the bank or a leaning log or something to die. This one got about 6’ from the bank but would not get any closer so I finished it off with a load of #4 duck shot from my Wingmaster. It started thrashing violently in the water and I looked over and Brigette’s little stub tail was wagging 90 miles an hour so I yelled “Skit him”. That was a terrible idea as she bounded straight up and out and landed on the beaver who was easily twice her size and she held on for dear life till the beaver sank and I watched in absolute distress as the last I saw of her was her little stub tail heading for the bottom of the slough. I did not know if the beaver had hold of her or she just would not turn loose. I threw down my gun and vest on top and wallet on top of the pile and made ready to go in the cold water after them when suddenly she popped back up and swam to the bank. Evidently she had held her breath as long as she could and he was too heavy for her to drag back in alone. I found a long stick and reached into the murky water and was able to pull the beaver up and took it home to skin.

             I remember taking her on a duck hunting trip and I was standing on a beaver dam in late afternoon when a pair of wood ducks flew up and I knocked one down with Dad’s old Parker Double barrel .12 gauge. I remember Brigette immediately jumped in the pond and swam to the duck and I was thinking “This is great! She’d going to retrieve him for me.” Wrong! She swam to the duck, circled him a couple of times and swam straight back and wagged her tail as if to say “We got him!” I waded out about thigh deep and got the duck but on the way back I tripped and fell head first into the muddy cold pond. The only thing dry was my right arm sticking up holding up Dad’s old Parker. When I got to the bank and poured the water out of my boots and rubberized game vest and such Brigette did not seem distressed at all by the event.

             In that same area I remember going down on a morning hunt. The ducks would fly over an old wood road as they left the roosts in the backwater and headed to the feeding areas of big water oaks. It was pretty fast shooting as they passed over for a few minutes then it was done. Either I or a buddy had knocked a duck down in front of us and we were waiting to go pick it up after the shooting ended. Suddenly Brigette trailed over near where the duck had fallen then she took flight in hot pursuit yipping vigorously and straight away for about ¼-1/2 mile then she shut up. And came back We figured she’d jumped a big swamp rabbit. I’d have thought it was deer except for all the shooting so close by. After the ducks quit flying we walked down to retrieve the dead duck and under a small windfall we found the head and neck of a male wood duck right where Brigette had started her chase. The only thing we could conclude was that a bobcat had sat right there watching us shoot and when the duck fell near him he grabbed and ate it then Brigette found him and chased him away. We never saw the cat and Brigette was unharmed but I am convinced that was what she had done.

             When fully grown Brigette was about 12-13 inches tall at the shoulder with long curly blonde hair on her ears, long feathered hairs on the back of her legs with relatively short white hair on the sides and a couple of buff colored patches on her back and sides. I guess if dogs have a personality you’d have to say Brigette’s was bubbly and cheerful. You could not look at her and help from smiling. I never saw her when she seemed down and she would not let anyone around her be down either. She seemed to think it was her goal or mission in life to make others happy. She always seemed to strive at everything to make me happy tried to do what she seemed to think I wanted her to do. The key word I’d have to use for her was dignity. She never did anything she was ashamed of and if she ever made a mistake she never tried to hide it. She was an open book with regal but not aloof features. She was very energetic but calming at the same time and if you were in a thoughtful mode she’d sit there with her chin on your thigh while you petted her and came to terms with the problems of the day. She was never demanding or questioning about anything you thought, said or did.

             I am convinced Brigette was placed on this earth as a seeing-eye dog to help one teenaged boy with the challenges and questions about life to pass smoothly from boyhood to young adulthood. Brigette was probably about 2 years old and we had many more adventures to experience but when I was about 16-17 years old we came home from church one Sunday afternoon and there was a note on the porch saying “You should have stayed home” and I never saw Brigette again. I don’t know what kind of low life would steal a teenagers beloved pet, guide and constant companion but apparently one came visiting while we were gone. There has to be a special place in Hell for such people.

             I apologize if I’ve bored you. It is amazing the memories from over 50 years ago that can be triggered simply by seeing a pretty young girl petting a shivering, white, blonde-eared 6 week old puppy at a gas station. I hope the young lady is half as happy with her new puppy as Brigette made me.

[barbender]

A good dog story never bores me, WV. Thank you!

[doc henderson]

we had a series of blond cocker spaniels.  great for hunting or lap.  great story but for the sad ending.  As the oldest son and later a father, it has been my duty to have elder or sick dogs put down.  I always have to stop the car for a bit on the way home.  glad I am still somewhat human.

[K-Guy]

Dogs are great companions and give you a special love they alone have. I miss everyone one I had at one time or another but each in their own way. Great story WV Sawmiller!

[B.C.C. Lapp]

A good dog will fill a hole in your life you didn't even know was there.  Cant imagine life without dogs.