The large and small of it all

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I’ve always loved dogs and had some remarkable ones over the years. This story is about one of those special dogs with a bigger than life personality.

“Let’s just name him Dammit Dog,” my husband, Roy proclaimed. “It’ll just save time later when those puppy teeth are chewing on our toes.” Roy was talking about the new addition to our family, a registered Yorkshire terrier, who was then lying sleepily in my lap looking up at us with those adorable liquid brown puppy eyes as we drove home from the breeder’s.

I wasn’t in favor of the name, but when the registration papers went in, Dammit Dog was on them. True to Roy’s prediction, Dammit did the puppy things that caused him to “earn” his name. He did the normal things – like chew on bare toes under the kitchen table at breakfast and chew the leather off the heel of just one of a new pair of patent leather high heels I had purchased for a company function. Once, when I gave him a rawhide chew bone to work on while I cooked dinner, I heard a strange crunching sound as he lay on the couch with his back to me giving that rawhide what for. I always put my purse and keys on the end of the couch where Dammit was chewing away when I came home from work and the strange crunchy sound made me stop cooking and go investigating. Dammit was chewing on the remote keys to my 4Runner. A new remote key and $250 later, even I had to admit, Dammit Dog was the perfect name for our boy.

But once, Dammit Dog did something to earn his name we still can’t believe he did. We brought him home to our weekend place on the river on Easter weekend. As soon as we opened the car door, he bounded out and ran over to introduce himself to our neighbor, Jack, and his German short-haired pointer named Hunter. Dammit – or D-Dog – quickly won Jack’s heart as he often visited once he discovered Jack kept dog biscuits under his stilt house for Hunter – and from then on, Dammit visited often. Jack enjoyed D-Dog’s visits and rewarded him with a biscuit every time he came socializing. So, D-Dog visited every chance he got – like every time our door was left open. If D-Dog was missing, invariably he was at Uncle Jack’s.

Jack also got a kick out of Hunter playing with D-Dog. Hunter was a full-grown, well-trained pointer. Just his head was bigger than D-Dog’s entire body. Jack evened things up for play time by getting Hunter to lie down on the ground. As soon as Hunter was settled, D-Dog was on him – pulling on his floppy ears, jumping over him again and again, and grabbing Hunter’s lower lip and in grand Yorkie style, shaking his head and growling, “killing” the lip. Hunter bore playtime with dignity. But when enough was enough, he would merely stand up – and play time was over. Most of the time, that worked well for everyone. Once, though, after a couple of dog biscuits, D-Dog was just getting started when Hunter had enough and stood up.

Not to be deterred, D-Dog looked around for something on Hunter’s body he could grab hold of and give the “death” shake to. Then he saw it. With all the energy and enthusiasm of a puppy on dog biscuits, Dammit ran, jumped and grabbed hold of … Hunter’s dangling manhood. Hunter just stood there with a look of hurt indignation in his eyes as Dammit hung by his needle puppy teeth and shook his head trying to “kill” his new toy. Good thing Jack and Hunter had a sense of humor, because it took Roy, Jack and me a couple of minutes to stop laughing and rescue Hunter.