Spike the Wonder Dog

© 2004 copyright Raymond C. Evans

No question about it, “Old Spike” was a wonder dog. No, he was not some kind of super hero from the Disney studios, nor did he have supernatural powers. You don’t want me to exaggerate the story, do you? It was just that he just made us wonder what crazy thing he might do next.

This dog was given to me by an acquaintance who was a cowboy on a large ranch. He was a cattle dog but the fellow said that he just wasn’t tough enough for his use. My situation was quite different; I had only about forty head of feeder stock on just forty acres. My cowboy friend thought this dog would serve me quite well for the few animals that I worked with.

Spike was a McNabb Shepherd; this was a cross of two breeds of herding dogs bred at the McNabb ranch at Ukiah, California. This breed was famous for their natural instincts to herd sheep or cattle. They would do this by running wide circles around the herd to bring the strays back into the group. Upon signals and whistles of the owner’s commands these dogs had a natural instinct to run in ever tightening circles thereby controlling the herd. One dog could take care of a small herd like mine, but in a really large herd many of these dogs would be used at the same time.

It didn’t take long for Old Spike and me to bond; perhaps it was because whenever I bought an ice cream cone for myself, I always bought one for him as well. The fact that he really liked to ride in my bright red 1950 Chevy pickup may have been a factor too.

He was a smart dog actually, but it took a little while to figure out why he wasn’t tough enough for the cowboy. Eventually we began to see what the problem was. Spike was blind, you see, he had no way to tell us, so we just had to figure it out for ourselves. No, he was not totally blind; he just had trouble identifying the images that were presented to him. I first noticed the problem when as I was giving him signals, he might try to “round up” the plow, the tractor, my pickup truck or some other thing. It was easy to see now, why Spike could not carry out his duties on a big ranch.

Spike was a very lean dog; he was built like a Greyhound, only much, much smaller. He weighed only about thirty pounds. He had one of those pinched in stomachs that made his front quarters and hind quarters look like they might be hanging on a clothes line. You could see at a glance that he had not spent his life drinking beer. He kind of looked like a “sawhorse”, actually, a sawhorse with ears and a tail. He was almost all black with just a stripe of white that ran from the top of his head down to his nose. This is pretty much what Old Spike looked like, a “black sawhorse” with a white stripe. This is pretty much what all McNabb Shepherds are supposed to look like. Spike was a “wonder” dog.

Spike was a nervous dog too; he was always in a hurry, always excited and most always in an agitated state of mind. He always ran most everywhere he went and if he was covering too much ground in a straight line, he had the answer for that too, he would just start running in circles. Being black, he always suffered from the sun’s heat. He had an answer for that problem too, he would just flop down spread-eagled in the nearest puddle and then get up and run some more. If he couldn’t find a puddle, he would just run down to the river and then run back. It seemed that most of his life was spent panting with his tongue hanging somewhere near his paws.

Yes, Spike was a “wonder dog” all right, you just couldn’t help but wonder about some of the things he might do. I kept him on a chain for instance that hung from a long wire with a sort of wooden trolley attachment. This was supposed to give him some room to run back and forth for the length of the wire. This worked quite well until the wood became affected by the elements, then it would sometimes hang up and bring old Spike to a sudden stop. The collar would make him choke and cough while he would lunge forward until he would manage to break it loose so that he could start running again, back and forth and forth and back. Spike didn’t care, he would just cough and choke and gag the whole day away.

Spike was always a happy dog, as far as I could tell, early on he would bark just like any other dog. That would all soon change however, soon he would just gag and cough and choke. He sure had enough practice, jerking on that chain on the wire. I think somehow he just forgot how to bark, it was as if he had learned a new language and as a result he had just cast off the old. He seemed to be just running through life coughing and choking to his heart’s content.

I had been blasting stumps, one day, if I remember correctly; it was about noon and time for lunch. I can remember for sure that my friend Jack had dropped by for a visit and we were eating lunch together, Jack, myself and Old Spike.

Spike only knew one trick and I was eager to show off my “wonder dog”. Spike’s trick was to flip some food tidbit off his nose up in to the air and then he would catch it and down the hatch it would go. I could never figure out how he could do this considering how blind he was, but he would seldom miss. I was never able to figure out how he could do it, because you could stand six feet away and toss food to him but he could never catch the food that way, he would just miss ten out of ten.

Well it came to pass that I had eaten a t-bone steak, at least most of the meat off it. I was eager to show Jack how my “wonder dog” could do his trick. Spike was aquiver with eager anticipation as I put that large bone on his nose. “Charge it”, I said, “charge it” I repeated about three or four times. Old Spike was really anticipating that bone now, he was just shaking with excitement. “It’s paid for” I said finally, his cue to throw it up in the air for the catch. Up, up, it went and down, down it fell right into his mouth and right down his throat in one big gulp. Good manners were not Spike’s forte.

This was a big bone; I never thought that he might try to swallow it whole. This was one of the most dumb things I had ever seen a dog do, even a “wonder dog”. You could just see the dog swell up as that bone went down; it was almost like watching a snake that had swallowed a gopher. Now he was showing signs of deep distress, he began choking and coughing and gagging, all the while going around in a little circle. “I don’t think he’s going to make it”, Jack said, and by now I was thinking the same thing. This was terrible; my “wonder dog” was choking to death on a bone that I had given him to show off his only trick. I really thought I was going to lose him right there.