It sounds strange that I would be writing a story about a farm dog on a blog called Goodlookinoldwomen. Yet, dogs are a major part of many women’s lives, aren’t they? Off-grid at Core Hollow, a dog provided serious assistance.
But, Dody’s strange appearance did not start out at a special kennel with a request for a breed of dog that would work well on a homestead. No, instead, Dody simply appeared as an answer to need.
Dody showed up at Core Hollow Farm one fall afternoon, ragged, footsore, hollow-eyed. Whatever his origins, he had been traveling for some time on the backroads. I was canning apples at the time, and he had the famished look of a dog who could chew and swallow a whole apple in minutes.
He had no collar or ID; but, like many hobos, maybe he preferred it that way. He looked about six months old, had learned the ways of the road early, it seemed.
My nine-year-old daughter greeted the dog with open arms, meeting him on the gravel lane to our place with joy. She had recently prayed for a friend, had believed for a friend, and now this manifestation!
Exactly two weeks after her decisive prayer request, she shaded her face with her hand, squinted sharply, and spotted the Promised One from afar on the dusty gravel road running past our garden gates. She fine-tuned her gaze, honed her sights on the ribby, four-legged figure, footsore and hollow-eyed, weary to the bone, running on empty, running out of gas. She raced barefooted up the drive and down the gravel ruts, shouted with joy, knelt in the dust and received the personage like the Prodigal Son returned from a far land.
The dog shied away from the rest of the family, refused to come when called, refused even the dog chow I set out. My daughter he treated as a friend through secret connections, someone he’d known for all his short life. On a 10 pm bed check for children, I discovered the dusty dog under forbidden sheets, grimy and snoring.
Soon the dog morphed into his ancestral form, 140 lbs of solid muscle and bone.
Two round, kind, intelligent eyes peered out of his black bear head. He learned the name of every neighbor child and every dog without prompting.
He patrolled and kept his eye on the ridge place where we lived then; watched the turkeys and the calves and the cats. But down in the night, when the coyotes wailed their wild old songs, he’d sing along, hum with his night voice, wearing his shadow.
Winters he slept inside, stretched wall to wall before the warm wood stove, a double-wide couch for tired children or cats.
He had his secrets, then. When winter snow receded, a bone yard glared from greening tufts of grass in front of the cabin we lived in. Here a staring skull, there a ribcage, around the woodpile a scatter of molars. No one ever asked questions.
Dody was sly-smart. His facial structure resembled a box with a nose and two guileless round eyes in the center. His ears squared the corners of the box. His paws resembled webbed canoe paddles, and his tail was a thick rudder. We suspected he was a Newfoundland mix, hence the web and tail component. They are bred for sea rescues.
Dody knew everything, and he didn’t need to be told about it. If he couldn’t locate his dish, he rummaged in Susanna Cow’s necessities and brought me a bucket when he needed a meal. Besides, he could rustle up his own meat if the occasion arose. He looked after the turkeys, calves and cats without fanfare. As for coyotes, coons, wildcats and the occasional wolf, all he needed to do was lift his lip once over teeth as long and white as daggers.
Dody Dog was not a pet. He was a kind of person, making his own decisions and a fundamental help at Core Hollow, as it turned out.
He became my daughter’s best friend.