Piggy the Chow-Chow , a Cow Barn Dog

At 2:02 AM I hear this. Ar-ar-ar-ar-ar-ar-ar..........Time to get up and pet the chow-chow. Like most dogs, Piggy the chow-chow sleep barks. Yepper, the old Pigwig has ever been a noise-maker, especially of endearing repetitive slurps and grunts, hence les nomme.

The Pig came to us a good while back and is now in the neighborhood of 12 or maybe 13 years old. He first came to my attention as a black shadow of the underbrush at Walnut Creek Park where I had undertaken the botanical component of my early Druid training many moons ago. Always accompanying me on the early Druid training botanical expeditions was Barney, a largish mutt who was charitably described in those days as an airedale sheepdog mix. And the black shadow of the underbrush was much interested in Barney, but not much interested in me. Nevertheless, the black shadow of the underbrush made us, more often than not, a threesome.

Then one day, Barney and I wandered into the northeast corner of the park to check the creek bed for sedges and there was a pretty young lady with a bag of dog food and she was giving of it to the black shadow, which out from under the underbrush appeared to be a smallish almost chow- chow. The pretty young lady came to the park regularly, and had resolved upon feeding this young dog, but had never been able to arrest him, due to his wild nature. She also indicated that she had been feeding the almost chow-chow thusly for several weeks.

But I, having noticed the almost chow-chow's affinity for Barney, resolved to capture him. This I accomplished a couple of weeks later. The strategy I employed included Barney's sociability and doggie treats. I succeeded in nabbing the stray almost chow-chow and he miraculously, gave up without a tussle, resigned. However, he would not progress a single inch in the direction I wished for him to go of his own volition, and as a result, I had to carry him, 30 pounds of wet, stinky and vermin infested puppy to the car parked almost a mile away. From that day to this, the Pig has never, ever, never, even once, followed any instruction I have ever given him. And if, right now, I want him to go somewhere else, I will have to carry him to that location. He is utterly oblivious to commands and, of course, has no notion of those tricks that seem to be innate to the capacity of most dogs. Interestingly, though, I once saw the Pig sniffing noses with a wild grey fox. Go figure!

Our initial plan for the Pig included a trip to the vet, followed by adoption to someone else's good home. However, the vet discerned that in addition to a dropped testicle, fixed by removal of dropped and un-dropped testicle alike, the Pig also possessed heartworms, a common pre-Heartguard malady of those days. The prescribed treatment in those days included medication and enforced inactivity, so Piggy was kept leashed to the couch in the den where he contrived what mischief he could, notably jumping up on the couch at maximum allowable acceleration, rebounding off the cushion, and rolling onto the floor, again, and again, and again. ......

This almost drove Molly crazy and she began to hate Piggy, since it was her lot, in those days to reside at home for much of the day with the several pets. But worse was to come, for anon, Piggy was allowed excursions to the back yard, from which he invariably escaped. He escaped not by jumping the chain link fence or by digging under it, but by laboriously and methodically climbing the chain link fence. Apparently, young chow-chows are adept climbers. Once out he would proceed to upset the neighborhood and his progress from yard to yard was always detectable by reason of the great clamor he evoked from the dogs, cats and humans he encountered.

Fortunately, in time he grew too heavy to climb the fence, a possible side benefit of castration, but he made up for this by uniformly bad behavior on walks. He got to go on these because he really liked them and they would calm him down for an hour or two and also because the walks spared Molly and the cats his company for awhile.

The only way Piggy ever learned anything about how he was supposed to act around the rest of us, was by watching Barney. If he didn't know what to do, Piggy would watch Barney. Piggy would just watch Barney and not do anything at all, except watch Barney. Oh, Piggy did learn that if anyone came to the house and made noise outside, he was supposed to raise hell barking. He did learn to do just that by watching Barney.

I shall relate one of Piggy's many adventures. Once upon a time Piggy had to go to the vet for his annuals. When we arrived, the veterinary assistant explained that I would no longer be allowed to restrain Piggy during the examination due to the new insurance rules in force at this particular clinic. Instead, two strapping young men efficiently muzzled the Pig and led him off to the back room while I sat at ease in the lobby. "This is a pleasant new policy", thought I, reflecting on the aches and pains that follow from restraining a 50 pound chow-chow for a good while.

But then, interrupting these pleasant thoughts, came one of the strapping young men holding a much bloodied hand and he headed for the bathroom located also off the lobby. And then a second strapping young man appeared and with him a pretty female veterinary assistant, who stated, "Mr. T....., could you please come help with Piggy, he has escaped into the kennels?"

Sure enough the Pig had indeed escaped to the kennels and was proceeding cage to cage and row to row, mixing it up with the inmates. And perched on top of Piggy's noggin between his little chow-chow ears, was the muzzle, serving as a doggie dunce cap.

Our last trip to the vet, just last Thursday, was much less eventful. Piggy is too old now to get into serious mischief, maybe, but to get him from the truck into the veterinary office, I still had to carry him if we were to proceed to the appointed destination. I wonder how many miles I have toted that dog during our long association. Someday I will miss not toting him along, maybe.

I have been reminded of why I was interested in acquiring Piggy, maybe, in the first place, and that an additional strategem involved in his acquisition. Barney, I thought, needed another dog for companionship when I was on the road (lots of the time in those days). So I thought, here's a "free one" that Barney likes to play with. Note: There actually are, for all practical purposes, free lunches, but there are definitely no free dogs.

One potential obstacle to my plan for acquiring the new dog was Molly, (Druidess of reality checks, who I was pretty sure, based on many negative recitations regarding another dog, didn't want two. So I decided that the way to overcome Molly's disinclination for habitating with two dogs was to take her along to Walnut Creek Park to see the poor little stray puppy that played with Barney at the park. This strategy worked perfectly and the puppy became not merely my project, but our project. So perhaps you can see from this how subtle a Druid can be, even at the sunrise of Druid training.