Speck

Speck was a Dalmation/Pointer cross. I will never forget the day we got Speck. By this time we had moved out of the basement and the upstairs, although not finished, was livable.

It was in the middle of the day, as I remember and we were playing in the yard, I think, it was a long time ago. My dad pulled in the drive and we just looked up, not realizing that this was going to be such an important moment in our young lives.

My dad got out a trotted around the car. He was not a grinning but looked a bit pizzed. He yanked open the passenger car door and said, “Get the hell out of there!” We had no clue what he was upset about and watched.

Out jumped this sorry looking puppy. Man he was black and white but the important part to my dad, at that time, was the fact that he had puke all over him. My dad looked in his car and was not happy. He was a bellering stuff that I can not post here and the dang dog was trying to get under the car. What a nasty looking sucker he was.

We ran over and squatted, like only young kids and Asians can do, and stared under the car at the most beautiful dog we had ever seen. At least it seemed that way.

We had not had a dog in a while as our Cocker, Penny had died. I think my mom had had Penny before I was born so she was like a sibling. She had died and I can still remember that clearly and exactly where she is buried.

We had not known my dad was gonna bring home a dog and the subject was not even brought up, if I remember right. I don’t know why he got it, maybe just a moment of weakness but I do know that at the moment, he was sorry he had.

He was a squalling like a mashed cat and my mother was trying to clean up the mess and it went right over us kids heads. We had a dog and it was the most beautiful dog in the world and puke did not mean diddly to us. The dog was scared out of its wits and sick. It was plagued with car sickness all its life.

Well Speck lived out the day and grew to be a great friend. Like Ron said, this was in the days before leash laws and the world was a great place for a dog. Speck, like all the dogs in the neighborhood would just run loose and come home at night. They would never wander far, usually stay in the yard waiting for one of us kids to take it on another adventure.

We lived in a small town which was surrounded with lakes and woodland. In the summer we had the world to explore and old Speck was right there with us.

The memory that Ron’s post brought to mind was something that happened back in the early fifty’s, maybe 51 as my dad was still alive and we had moved up stairs, out of the basement.

My buddies, Larry and Jim and I use to do a lot of fishing. We had crude equiptment, this was before spinning tackle. I had an old five dollar Johnson casting reel. They would rarely last more than one year the way we treated them so every spring I would go out to the golf course at night and catch night crawlers to sell to Shorty Hook. On a good night we would get maybe a couple hundred, that was on a good night. I had one buddy that would get up to a thousand a night. I can not imagine how that sucker did it either. He was just good!

Shorty had a small boat livery and bait shop on Pine Lake. He also had a few cabins he rented in the summer by the week. There was a small beach between his two docks for his guests. I have found 29 rings and much silver there diving :D

Shorty was a nasty little feller but bought crawlers and crickets from us. In the late summer we had cricket traps all over the place and he would give us a penny each for them. We got a penny each for our crawlers too.

I remember one time that I took a bunch of them to Shorty and instead of counting them he just weighed them. I had a fit as I wanted them counted. A penny was a penny back then. He told me that a hundred crawlers weighed a pound. I argued with the little sucker that he was wrong. He weighed out a pound worth and I counted them. One hundred on the button!! After that we just weighed them.

We had very few fishing lures back then. A jitterbug was one of the few we had. A big green, casting size, Jitterbug. That was one of my prized possessions. I don’t remember catching all that much on it but the pro’s in Field and Stream all swore that they were the best. In later years I did real well with them but back then I never caught any lunkers. We usually fished with crawlers or the Jitterbug.

We kept our meager fishing tackle in the basement, what little we had in the way of gear was in an old fishing tackle box that I got somewhere. There was usually an assortment of hooks, sinkers, an old stringer and a rule that was attached to the top of the box. I usually kept my Jitterbug in there too.

My rod was just left leaning against the wall in the basement. One day we had been fishing somewhere, I do not remember where, and after coming home I took the gear to the basement and leaning the rod against the wall, put the box next to it. I had been using the Jitterbug that day and failed to take it off the line. I just left it on the rod.

Well old Speck must have been down there and being a normal dog, had to check it out. He went up and sniffed the thing and it moved a bit. Well he had to sniff it again and it bumped his nose and he jerked back.

The Jitterbug has two sets of treble hooks. One of the barbs snagged old Speck in the left nostral and he jerked his head, ramming the hook home. He then started a squalling and headed for the stairs and out of the house. Well the hook was solidly in his nose and the line was still on the lure and the other end of the line was firmly attached to the rod and reel. Man we had a dog on the line and the faster the dog ran the faster the line ran out. Up the stairs he went and out the door, just a howling and heading for the woods.

Well I had maybe fifty yards of line on that thing, I don’t really know how much but when the line all left the reel the rod and reel started following old Speck. He was half way across the yard and scaring the crap out of all of us when the rod and reel started up the stairs. Well it did not get far. It hung up on one of the steps and if that hook was not rammed home before, it was now!!

We came running up the stairs and my mother, who was hanging out launder, was to him first. The poor dog was just standing there a quivering and looking up at us with those mournful eyes. His expression was one of, “Fix it and make it quit hurting” I will never forget that look either. I was mixed with the urge to laugh and cry. There he sat so trustful, looking up at us and he also looked silly with that dang big lure a hanging from his nose. It was still hooked to the line and rod as it had not broken.

My mother found something to cut the line with and looked closely at Specks nose. Believe it or not that dang barb had not come out through the top of Specks nose! It was still buried in there. Dog nose has to be some kind of tough because that dog was running full our, he weighed maybe sixty pounds and had been jerked to a full stop. There was a bump where the hook was trying to come through but not much of one. We did not have a clue what to do.

One of my buddies, Angus Coulter lived the next block over. His dad had a sawmill and was the meanest man I had ever met, even including up to now,2005! He was home as his home and sawmill was one. My mother told me to take Speck over to Old Man Coulter and see if he could help. I hated and feared that old man but I had to help Speck. This was in the mid fiftys as my dad was dead by this time. He died in 53.

We all took Speck over to the saw mill and the old man came out and asked what the hell we were doing at the mill. I was scared to death of that old man but I led my dog up to him and he looked down. Nothing needed be said as it was pretty evident what the problem was. Speck just sat there looking up at him.

The old man grunted and walked back in the mill and came out with some pliers. He said, “Hold the dang dog and if it bites me I will cut its head off!” I believed him too and squatted and held Speck around the neck. Speck just knew we were trying to help and although he wined a bit and was trembling as it must have hurt, he stayed very still as that mean old man took the pliers and shoved the hook up through that nose. Man I will never forget as I was right down near his head a holding him and the nasty old man, stinking of sweat and chaw, was grunting as he worked it through.

Finally it popped through, to my relief and Old Man Coulter calmly cut off the barb and drew the rest of the hook back out. Simple as that. He said for us to get the hell out now and we got.!


We took Speck home and he was a running around and doing what happy dogs do. My mother put something on the wound and he was fine. Until the day he died, and he lived to be about 15 I guess, he had a white spot on the top of his nose to remind us to not leave hooks where he could get at them.