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EASTER SUNDAY – TERRIER STYLE
by Barbara (BJ) Andrews, ShowDogs O'BJ

    I had a post from an old friend, a terrier person tried and true.  I’ve changed the names to protect them from the uninformed but there isn’t a real terrier person out there who won’t read this with a laugh.

    “My pups had a great Easter. We took them into the lower pasture while we were working.  Put them into the old goat pen, now all in knee deep grass. I heard some barking but let them play, they were loving being next to the bull. Would have made a cute picture with the little female licking the bull’s huge black head.

    “When we were again close to the pen I noticed that little Petunia had a dead body hanging from her mouth. She and Huck were playing keep away with this little creature.  After putting the horse up we went to investigate. Sure enough they had found a nest of bunnies and had their own Easter bunny - lunch. Sort of disgusting but the bunnies died quickly and the pups had a super holiday.”

    It could have been a rat’s nest or gopher hole the young terriers were working.  Any keeper of hoof-stock would praise those pups for doing what they were bred to do!  Bunnies are cute but to young terriers, a pest is a pest and to anyone that keeps a garden, bunnies are pests of the first order!

    My first Bull Terrier, a lovely bitch from Winkie, came bouncing in to the living room one evening.  She could have been Lassie with a case of the mumps as she did the  “hurry up, c’mere, quick, now, hurry, trouble!” scene. 

    Laughing, I got up to see what she wanted.  She scrambled ahead of me, rounded the corner into the kitchen and then, tail quivering, muscles taunt, she “pointed” the counter top.  “What?” I said, looking at the empty counter top, which from her short perspective, she couldn’t see.  “Yes, yes, right there, can’t you see it?” she barked, bouncing her front up and down in frustration.  I looked again.  Nothing on fire, the toaster was just sitting there next to a cold coffee pot.  Cutting board.  Loaf of bread.  A tea cup that should have been in the sink.

    “What is it?” I asked.  Mighty Mouth (yes, that was her registered name and her call name) rapped a short, emphatic bark that sounded like “Damn!”  As I turned back to have a last look at nothing, I heard a rustle.  Hmmm.  I glanced down.  Head cocked, ears pinned, eyes flashing – yep, it wasn’t my imagination.

    “Bill????? Come in here” I called.  She glanced back over her shoulder.  Knew exactly what I’d said.  Her ears twitched backwards when he, sighing, got up.  I heard her think “Hurry Bill!” 

    He couldn’t see anything either.  Mighty Mouth and I insisted we’d heard a noise and grinning, he admitted her nose was probably keener that our hearing.  I picked her up so she could see as Bill reached over and swept the coffee pot, cup, and toaster to one side.  Wait!  There was that scurrying, rustling sound again.  Mighty Mouth whined.  She was intently fixed on either the coffee pot or the toaster.  Bill jiggled the pot.  Nothing.  Tapped the toaster.  There!  Just a glimpse but I nearly dropped her as she struggled to get at it.

    I set her on the floor as Bill unplugged the toaster.  He set it down on the floor and for a moment there was dead silence.  Then, whiskers twitching, there appeared in the toast slot, a mouse’s nose.  The Bull Terrier was enraptured.  Frozen.  I cast a furtive glance at Bill.  He rolled his eyes.  Ever so cautiously, the tiny mouse poked its head higher to have a look around.  Seeing no movement, (the three of us were mesmerized) it eased a teeeeny bit higher.

    Whhoosh!  It happened so fast that had I not seen her swallow, we would’ve thought it got away.  She gulped a second time and the “lump” midway down her throat went on down.  She gave a double whirly-spin and tail wagging furiously, looked hopefully up at the counter. 

    Let me see.  Was that Easter or Christmas??? 

    Memory fails me.  But Ch. Banbury Mighty Mouth O’BJ is forever preserved in my heart.  She was the white “tumor” attached to my Akita bitch’s neck for the first few months.  She was the oddity that regularly regurgitated an assortment of screws, nuts, cigarette tin foil, pebbles, coins, and on special occasions, presented us with things like the missing car key or the hem of my chenille bathrobe.  She entertained neighborhood children and our staff.  I admit, she was a stitch when she got slightly tipsy on the beer they gave her during an office party.  She was my constant companion.  My lap dog, back before female BT became 70 pound wonders.  She was a nurse that once stayed next to me in bed, fasting, utterly still for over 48 hours when I was too sick to get up.

Like the youngsters experiencing their first trophy hunt, she was the dog who taught me what a real terrier can be and should be.  Oh, how we miss her!

reprinted with permission Terrah-Te-rah the Terrier Magazine 4/2000

muraby@gateway.net

artwork by Joan Ronalder

Library > Prose and Poetry