Rover
Only chow/collie picture I could find
Some of the best stories my dad told were about his beloved dog Rover. These were stories that would still make dad laugh when he told them many years later. Some of the Rover stories made him laugh, just not the last one.
It sounded like Rover had been dad’s only true friend in childhood. The half chow/half collie was his constant companion and guardian. Rover was so protective that when my dad wanted to get in a fight he had to order Rover into a sit/stay position or the dog would intervene on dad’s behalf. Dad always warned me to not get a chow for Josh. He believed it’s their nature to be “one person” dogs and feared it would attack the out-of-favor person during an argument.
Whenever dad went hunting Rover went along so when dad shot a squirrel, Rover could run out to retrieve for him.
The relationship wasn’t without it’s bumps along the way. Dad told me one time Rover brought back a squirrel that hadn’t actually expired so when dad reached to take it from Rover’s mouth the squirrel sank its teeth into my dad’s finger. Little boy dad was hopping mad so Rover took the sensible approach and ran home to hide under the porch for a couple days until his master calmed down.
It was known that dogs couldn’t win a fight with a raccoon in water (the raccoon would always take the dog underwater and drown it) so when Rover jumped into a deep creek after a raccoon and went underwater with it, my dad sank down on the bank and alternated between crying his heart out because his much loved dog was dead and cursing the stupidity of the dog. When Rover broke the surface with the dead raccoon hanging limply in his mouth he probably expected praise for his accomplishment, but instead found one very angry boy for him having risked his life. It was another occasion Rover decided discretion was the better part of valor and he once again ran off and hid under the porch until dad forgave him. I got the feeling Rover waiting out dad’s temper was a fairly regular occurence.
There was a man who had an incredibly large cat and was always taunting dad that his cat could kill dad’s dog. Dad went for a long time ignoring the man and finally tired of the baiting and said okay to a fight between the two. Rover promptly broke the cat’s neck and dad had to run home, with Rover in hot pursuit, to avoid the man killing both of them. The man was really angry about his dead cat.
Now the part that always made me cry and did not make dad laugh. I don’t know how long dad and Rover had been together when a canine disease they called “black tongue” started making the rounds in the area. Dogs would have swollen tongues that turned black and death was inevitable from suffocation so when Rover contracted the disease my dad went from adult to adult begging someone to take his dog out and put him down so Rover wouldn’t suffer.
No one would do it. Dad himself had to take Rover up into the hills, shoot him, and bury him all alone. Dad was around ten years old at the time. This was another story that as a little girl caused me to feel huge dislike those adults and how they treated my dad as a child.