Essay by John Mattingly
Rural Life – August 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine
Pickle came home from a roundup to find his faithful dog Norton lying on the porch next to another dog. Pickle inspected the new dog and saw that it was female. She nuzzled Norton for protection and Norton growled halfheartedly at Pickle for messing with his woman.
Already the dubious master of one hound, Pickle realized his first responsibility in this situation was to sing to the new female. He therefore stood on the porch and, playing an imaginary banjo, delivered Oh My Darlin’ in his uniquely personal operatic drawl. The new female rocked her head and pricked her ears with keen appreciation, as did Norton. Pickle then sat down and let them come to him and nuzzle his knees.
The new female had no collar. Like Norton, she was ample-bodied. She had distinctive dark rings under her eyes and her eyes did not quite open all the way, giving her an unchangeably forlorn expression. Her muzzle was soft as velvet and thickly populated with white whiskers. Her tail wagged with metronomic regularity. Pickle held her ears in his hands and closed his eyes. The first name that came to his mind was Fred.
“I can’t name you Fred,” he said to her. She gave forth a snort that indicated she rather agreed. Norton whined his concurrence, then let forth a lengthy yawn. Pickle again held her ears and closed his eyes. “Erma. Chastity. Billy. Dinah. Dinah. Dinah!”
Norton and Dinah both nodded their agreement and pleasure with the name selection. “I didn’t say Dining,” Pickle emphasized to them. “I said ‘Dinah.'”
Nevertheless, Pickle went to the bag of dog food and filled the ladle. He held it in suspense for a moment and had to admit that he was quite touched by the sight of Norton and Dinah looking up at him as if he were the President of the United States.
During the next week, Pickle faced the economic reality of feeding two dogs, and he became quite concerned when he observed that Norton showed no restraint around Dinah, nor did Dinah show any restraint around Norton. Their relationship seemed to provide that they each eat as much as possible.
Within a week, Norton had revived his old habits of eating other dogs’ food, garbage, and fresh horse manure. Worst of all, Norton taught these bad habits to Dinah, and the end result of it all was that Pickle was subjected to the bottomless grief that only his fellow ranch hands were capable of dispensing.
“I’ve got an idea for you,” said Cap. “Put a stick in each of those mutt’s mouths to prop ’em open, then put a chain around their necks, and then drag ’em up an irrigation ditch to scour out the weeds. That’ll fill ’em up and do a worthy chore in one operation. You might even get lucky and sod in their bellies so they’ll feel full all the time.”
As an added humiliation to Pickle, the two dogs began to chase the larks in the pastures. “Sure is nice to have dogs protecting us from the larks,” said Larry D. “What would we do without ’em?”
BT just shook his head. There was scarcely a more idiotic sight on the ranch than two overweight dogs ferociously chasing flocks of larks.
Then, Norton and Dinah moved underneath Pickle’s mobile home. But they didn’t let it go at that. They didn’t just find a warm place to curl up together. No, they pawed down the transverse heat ducting so that it discharged most of the forced air from the furnace onto the two of them. Pickle woke up to a cold house one morning, so he checked the furnace and everything was fine. He went outside and noticed that Norton and Dinah seemed especially chipper. It was another day before Pickle deduced that the heating problem had to be under the mobile home. He slithered under, only to find Norton and Dinah basking at the end of the heating duct.
Irritated, Pickle grabbed the first thing he could find, which happened to be the shackles used on the ranch milk cow, Bonnie, and he fastened Norton and Dinah together. Then he tied them to a tree and hosed them. “Bad dogs,” Pickle repeated. “You don’t live under my house. Understand?” Both dogs looked at him with respect, and with ears that drooped as if anvils hung from them.
As soon as Pickle released the dogs, they dashed for the corral, and while still soaking wet, rolled in manure. They returned to Pickle’s feet as if to say, “Bad human. Never spray us with clean water.”
Pickle realized that to preserve his status as a superior being he must escalate the conflict, but he just couldn’t do it. He dropped to his haunches and stared at the hounds. “You know,” he said with maximum menace, “if I was Adolf Hitler, I would pull your whiskers out, one by one.”
Norton’s sigh said, “And you know something else, if dogs could get lawyers, you’d be in big trouble.” Pickle re-shackled the hounds and left them to contemplate their disrespect. Later he brought them a plate of charcoal briquettes.
Thereafter, Norton and Dinah ate with restraint, slept in the open night air, and curtailed their other antics. But they walked about the ranch with such sanctimonious despair — a despair that suggested they were carrying the great burdens of the universe above their paws — that Pickle had to wonder which was worse: dogs that acted like stupid, worthless scoundrels, or dogs that acted like starving monks.
From Life with Pickle, copyright© 2001 by J.C. Mattingly. Reprinted with permission.
