by Farley Mowat
His pacific attitude used to embarrass my mother when the two of them happened to encounter a belligerent strange dog while they were out walking. Mutt would waste no time in idle braggadocio. At first glimpse of the stranger he would insinuate himself under Mother’s skirt and no amount of physical force, nor scathing comment, could budge him from this sanctuary. Often the strange dog would not realize that it was a sanctuary and this was sometimes rather hard on Mother.
Despite his repugnance toward fighting, Mutt was no coward, nor was he unable to defend himself. He had his own ideas about how to fight, ideas which were unique but formidable. Just how efficacious they actually were was demonstrated to us all within a week of our arrival at our new address.
Knowing nothing of the neighborhood, Mutt dared to go where even bulldogs feared to tread, and one morning he foolishly pursued a cat into the ex-schoolteacher’s yard. He was immediately surrounded by four ravening Huskies. They were a merciless lot, and they closed in for the kill.
Mutt saw at once that this time he would have to fight. With one quick motion he flung himself over on his back and began to pedal furiously with all four feet. It looked rather as if he were riding a bicycle built for two, but upside down. He also began to sound his siren. This was a noise he made – just how, I do not know – deep in the back of his throat. It was a kind of frenzied wail. The siren rose in pitch and volume as his legs increased their R.P.M.’s, until he began to sound like a gas turbine at full throttle.
The effect of this unorthodox behavior on the four Huskies was to bring them to an abrupt halt. Their ears went forward and their tails uncurled as a look of pained bewilderment wrinkled their brows. And then slowly, and one by one, they began to back away, their eyes uneasily averted from the distressing spectacle before them. When they were ten feet from Mutt they turned as one dog and fled without dignity for their own back yard.
The mere sight of Mutt’s bicycle tactics (as we referred to them) was usually sufficient to avert bloodshed, but on occasion a foolhardy dog would refuse to be intimidated. The results in these cases could be rather frightful, for Mutt’s queer posture of defense was not all empty bombast.
Once when we were out hunting gophers Mutt was attacked by a farm collie who, I think, was slightly mad. He looked mad, for he had one white eye and one blue one, and the combination gave him a maniac expression. And he acted mad, for he flung himself on the inverted Mutt without the slightest hesitation.
Mutt grunted when the collie came down on top of him, and for an instant the tempo of his legs was slowed. Then he exerted himself and, as it were, put on a sprint. The collie became air-borne, bouncing up and down as a rubber ball bounces on the end of a water jet. Each time he came down he was raked fore and aft by four sets of rapidly moving claws, and when he finally fell clear he was bleeding from a dozen ugly scratches, and he had had a bellyful. He fled. Mutt did not pursue him; he was magnanimous in victory.
Had he been willing to engage deliberately in a few such duels with the neighborhood dogs, Mutt would undoubtedly have won their quick acceptance. But such was his belief in the principles of nonviolence – as these applied to other dogs, at least – that he continued to avoid combat.
The local packs, and particularly the one led by the bull terrier next door, spared no pains to bring him to battle, and for some time he was forced to stay very close to home unless he was accompanied by Mother or by myself. It was nearly a month before he found a solution to this problem.
The solution he eventually adopted was typical of him.
Almost all the back yards in Saskatoon were fenced with vertical planking nailed to horizontal two-by-fours. The upper two-by-four in each case was usually five or six feet above the ground, and about five inches below the projecting tops of the upright planks. For generations these elevated gangways had provided a safe thoroughfare for cats. One fine day Mutt decided that they could serve him too.
I was brushing my teeth after breakfast when I heard Mutt give a yelp of pain and I went at once to the window and looked out. I was in time to see him laboriously clamber up on our back fence from a garbage pail that stood by the yard gate. As I watched he wobbled a few steps along the upper two-by-four, lost his balance, and fell off. Undaunted he returned at once to the garbage pail and tried again.
I went outside and tried to reason with him, but he ignored me. When I left he was still at it, climbing up, staggering along for a few feet, then falling off again.
I mentioned this new interest of his during dinner that night, but none of us gave it much thought. We were used to Mutt’s peculiarities, and we had no suspicion that there was method behind this apparent foolishness. Yet method there was, as I discovered a few evenings later.
A squad of Bengal lancers, consisting of two of my friends and myself armed with spears made from bamboo fishing rods, had spent the afternoon riding up and down the back alleys on our bicycles hunting tigers (alley cats). As suppertime approached we were slowly pedaling our way homeward along the alley behind River Road when one of my chums, who was a little in the lead, gave a startled yelp and swerved his bike so that I crashed into him, and we fell together on the sun-baked dirt. I picked myself up and saw my friend pointing at the fence ahead of us. His eyes were big with disbelief.
The cause of the accident, and of my chum’s incredulity, was nonchalantly picking his way along the top of the fence not fifty yards away. Behind that fence lay the home of the Huskies, and although we could not see them, we – and most of Saskatoon – could hear them. Their frenzied howls were punctuated by dull thudding sounds as they leaped at their tormentor and fell back helplessly to earth again.
Mutt never hesitated. He ambled along his aerial route with the leisurely insouciance of an old gentleman out for an evening stroll. The Huskies must have been wild with frustration, and I was grateful that the fence lay between them and us.
We three boys had not recovered from our initial surprise when a new canine contingent arrived upon the scene. It included six or seven of the local dogs (headed by the bull terrier) attracted to the scene by the yammering of the Huskies. They spotted Mutt, and the terrier immediately led a mass assault. He launched himself against the fence with such foolhardy violence that only a bull terrier could have survived the impact.
We were somewhat intimidated by the frenzy of all those dogs, and we lowered our spears to the “ready” position, undecided whether to attempt Mutt’s rescue or not. In the event, we were not needed.
Mutt remained unperturbed, although this may have been only an illusion, resulting from the fact that he was concentrating so hard on his balancing act that he could spare no attention for his assailants. He moved along at a slow but steady pace, and having safely navigated the Huskies’ fence, he jumped up to the slightly higher fence next door and stepped along it until he came to a garage. With a graceful leap he gained the garage roof, where he lay down for a few moments, ostensibly to rest, but actually – I am certain – to enjoy his triumph.
Below him there was pandemonium. I have never seen a dog so angry as that bull terrier was. Although the garage wall facing on the alley was a good eight feet high, the terrier kept hurling himself impotently against it until he must have been one large quivering bruise.
Mutt watched the performance for two or three minutes; then he stood up and with one insolent backward glance jumped down to the dividing fence between two houses, and ambled along it to the street front beyond.
The tumult in the alley subsided and the pack began to disperse. Most of the dogs must have realized that they would have to run halfway around the block to regain Mutt’s trail, and by then he might be far away. Dispiritedly they began to drift off, until finally only the bull terrier remained. He was still hurling himself at the garage wall in a paroxysm of fury when I took myself home to tell of the wonders I had seen.
From that day forth the dogs of the neighborhood gave up their attempts against Mutt and came to a tacit acceptance of him – all, tha
t is, save the bull terrier. Perhaps his handball game against the fence had addled his brain, or it may be that he was just too stubborn to give up. At any rate he continued to lurk in ambush for Mutt, and Mutt continued to avoid him easily enough, until the early winter when the terrier – by now completely unbalanced – one day attempted to cross the street in pursuit of his enemy and without bothering to look for traffic. He was run over by an old Model T.
Mutt’s remarkable skill as a fence walker could have led to the leadership of the neighborhood dogs, had that been what he desired, for his unique talent gave him a considerable edge in the popular game of catch-cat; but Mutt remained a lone walker, content to be left to his own devices.
He did not give up fence walking even when the original need had passed. He took a deep pride in his accomplishment, and he kept in practice. I used to show him off to my friends, and I was not above making small bets with strange boys about the abilities of my acrobatic dog. When I won, as I always did, I would reward Mutt with candy-coated gum. This was one of his favorite confections and he would chew away at a wad of it until the last vestige of mint flavor had vanished, whereupon he would swallow the tasteless remnant. Mother thought that this was bad for him, but as far as I know, it never had any adverse effect upon his digestive system, which could absorb most things with impunity.
8
CATS AND LADDERS
utt had always disliked cats, but until he became an expert fence walker, he had never been able to demonstrate his feelings in a truly efficient manner. The fenced-in back yards of Saskatoon might have been built to order for the cats, and specifically designed to thwart all dogs. Perhaps as a result of this favorable environment the cat population was large, and the cats themselves had grown careless and arrogant. It was understandable that they should feel this way, after many years of security; but it was a foolhardy attitude, as Mutt soon demonstrated.
Once he had perfected the art of fence walking, he became the scourge and often the nemesis of the cats on our block. When the surviving local cats became few in number, and wary, Mutt went farther afield, scouring alleys right across Saskatoon for cats that had not had warning of his unique abilities. Before the year was out he had engendered such a feeling of insecurity among the city’s cats that they had become almost wholly arboreal.
Once having located a cat, Mutt would make the usual futile sort of dog rush in its direction. The cat would promptly climb the nearest fence and sit there feeling at ease and safe. With a dejected look Mutt would turn away, apparently accepting defeat, while the cat spat insults at his retreating back.
But having reached a corner of the fence, Mutt would turn suddenly and with a great leap gain the top two-by-four. Before the startled cat had time to stand its hair on end, Mutt would come rushing toward it, on its own level.
The cat would now find itself at a double disadvantage. It could not safely balance on the fence while it attempted to scratch out its assailant’s eyes. Neither could it safely turn its back and flee. If it leaped down to the ground, it was at once in Mutt’s native element. If it attempted to retreat along the fence, Mutt’s long legs would soon catch it up. Only if there was a tree within instant reach could the cat hope to escape unscathed.
It was inevitable – Mutt being the way he was – that he would one day decide to follow his quarry into the upper branches. Nor was it as improbable an endeavor as it may sound. After all, there are many other terrestrial animals that occasionally take to the trees, and do so with some skill. Goats are often to be seen, in Mediterranean countries, browsing the upper branches of olive trees. Ground hogs will also climb trees, and there are many reports of coyotes having been treed by pursuing hounds.
Nevertheless, my family and I were electrified one morning to discover Mutt halfway up a tree in our back yard. He was climbing awkwardly but determinedly, and he got fifteen feet above the ground before a dead branch gave beneath his weight and he came bouncing down again. He was slightly bruised, and the wind was knocked out of him; but he had proved that climbing was not impossible for a dog, and from that moment he never looked down.
None of us realized just how far he would dare with his new skill until a day in the spring of the following year when a fire engine went streaking past our house with sirens blasting. I leaped aboard my bike and gave chase. Half a block from home I overtook a chum of mine named Abel Cullimore, also riding his bicycle, and I pulled up alongside to ask what the excitement was about.
Abel was a fat youth, and he was gasping for breath. “Don’t know – for sure–” he panted. “I heard – wild animal – in a tree.”
By this time we had turned down Seventh Avenue and we could see a small cluster of people grouped about the fire engine, which had stopped under a row of cottonwood trees a block ahead of us. The engine was a ladder truck and the ladder was extended so that its top was lost to view amidst the bright greenery above. As we drew near, a newspaper photographer stepped out of a car with his camera in his hand.
Two grim-looking householders were standing on the sidewalk beneath the cottonwoods, cradling shotguns in their arms. I walked over to them and, peering upward, caught a glimpse of familiar black and white fur, and I knew at once to whom it must belong.
Alarmed by the attitude of the two gunners, I hastened to explain to them that the thing up the tree was only a dog – my dog in fact.
This information was greeted with hostility.
“Smart-aleck kid!” one of the men remarked.
The other waved me away, saying sternly, “Run along, you boy. If you wasn’t so young, I’d say you was corked.”
The first man guffawed loudly, and I backed away. I could not really blame the men. The foliage was too thick for any stranger to identify the beast up in the tree, and anyway it was making a weird and most undoglike noise. Only Abel and I recognized the sounds as the plaintive chattering that Mutt made when he was in difficulties.
I was debating whether or not I dared accost the man who was operating the fire-truck controls when there came a startled cry from the branches overhead, into which a fireman armed with a gunny sack and a revolver had just disappeared.
“Son of a self-sealing cylinder,” he bawled, a note of intense incredulity in his voice, “it’s a damn dawg!”
Mutt and I were both greatly relieved when the fireman finally descended with the “dawg” slung over his shoulder. Mutt had suffered no harm, other than to his dignity, but that had been ruffled, and he slunk away for home the moment the fireman put him down.
Descending from trees always remained a difficulty for Mutt and when he began climbing ladders he encountered the same problem, and it got him into several curious situations.
His interest in ladders had followed naturally upon his tree-climbing experiments, and I encouraged him, for I was anxious to expand my renown as the owner of a remarkably acrobatic dog. We began with stepladders, and these were easy. Rung ladders followed, and before many days he could mount quickly and lightly to the roof of our house. But if the pitch of the ladder was at all steep, his attempts to descend, head first, degenerated into a free slide that ended with a thump on the ground below. Eventually he learned to control his descent by hooking his hind feet over progressively lower rungs, while he guided himself with his forefeet. But in the early stages of his ladder-climbing career he could only go up.
Not content to experiment with our ladders at home, Mutt would tackle any ladder he came across. It so happened that there lived on our street a man by the name of Couzinsky – a baker by trade, and on the night shift at his plant. It was Couzinsky’s habit to spend the daylight hours improving the appearance of his two-story frame house. He used to repaint the entire house at least once a year, and each year he used a different color.
One would have thought that he enjoyed ladder work almost as much as Mutt, for on any suitable day you could find Couzinsky perched high up under the eaves wielding his brush. He once explained his passion for painting in this way: “Why
I painted? Why, you ask? She’s lovely street, this place. Better I should look lovely too! And so I painted!”
And so he did.
I was not always fortunate enough to witness Mutt’s misadventures, but I witnessed this one. It was unforgettable. It was on a Saturday afternoon and Mutt and I had been for a tramp along the riverbank looking for dinosaur bones. On the way home we passed Couzinsky’s place and I noted with approval that he was changing his color scheme again, this time from green to puce. As I walked on I did not notice that Mutt was no longer at my heels, for I was engrossed in speculation about the possibility of finding dinosaur bones in the Anglican Church yard. By this, I hasten to explain, I mean that it had dawned on me that the gravediggers might conceivably stumble across such remains when they were about their work. I knew one of the diggers slightly, and I had just about decided that I would try to enlist his interest when there came a frightful shriek from somewhere behind me.
I spun on my heel and there, high on the south wall of Couzinsky’s multicolored house, I saw a strange tableau.
At the very top of the ladder was Couzinsky himself. He was clinging by his hands to the eave trough, while from his right foot a gallon can of paint hung precariously suspended. Immediately below him was Mutt. Mutt’s situation was most peculiar. He must have attempted to turn around on the upper rungs of the ladder, but he had only succeeded in thrusting his head and forequarters through the rungs so that he was balanced on his midriff and helpless to move in any direction. Couzinsky was still yelling fiercely, but Mutt was saving his breath.
I ran to their aid and, having clambered up the ladder, managed to get Mutt turned around. Couzinsky put his feet back on the top rung and we three descended to the ground.
As Mutt’s nominal master I expected a severe dressing-down, but Couzinsky surprised me. Apparently his admiration for Mutt’s climbing abilities outweighed the effects of the shock that he had suffered. It must have been a severe shock too.