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Authors: Gary Paulsen
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tomatoes, and any surplus the animals didn’t get we gave to friends. (One year this process resulted in our having nearly fourteen hundred
pounds
of tomatoes.)
But there were rogues, some that took too much, some that were violent. The worst of these were the bears. Most of them were mellow, some less so, and when they became too aggressive I would shoot a high-powered rifle near them and scare them off. This worked for a long time but some of them became accustomed to the crack of the rifle and didn’t run; they would ignore yelling or banging of pans, but even then we were hesitant to go to the next phase—destroying the bear. By law, we were allowed to if they destroyed property or threatened us, but I hada rule that if they didn’t actually attack one of the sled dogs—frequently they ate with the dogs and didn’t bother them—or a person I would not shoot them. Indeed, in all my years of running dogs I had to shoot only one bear.
But one particular bear was becoming a problem. It had been in the garden several times and although it ran when I fired warning shots it seemed to hesitate. I decided it would be good to watch it.
But when the problem bear came back I wasn’t there. I was in the kitchen and my wife was working in the garden. Quincy, as always, was by her side and she was on her hands and knees weeding when she heard a strange
whoofing
sound nearby and looked up to see the problem bear coming at her. There was no warning, no stance, no threat— it was down and moving toward her.
We had procedures. Do not make eye contact,get up, back away, and she did all these things. They did not work. It kept coming and was clearly going to attack, was attacking, when Quincy went for the bear like a fur-covered bullet.
It was a draw as to who was more astonished, the bear or my wife. Quincy launched himself from the ground, four-inch legs pumping, and caught the bear in the center of its chest. He grabbed a mouthful of fur and hung on, clinging like a burr. Surprised, the bear stopped and tried to bite at Quincy but the dog was in too close. The bear started scraping with its front paws and my wife chose that moment to use all the good luck from the rest of her life. She rushed in, grabbed Quincy, pulled him off the bear and ran for the house. For some reason—shock, perhaps—the bear did not follow her, and Quincy, miraculously, was not injured. Later, at the vet’s, we couldn’t find a scratch on him, nor any internal injuries.
Quincy just passed on last year at the ripe old age (he was well on when we got him in Alaska) of eighteen or twenty years, as near as the doctor could figure. At the end he was blind and close to deaf but he could still smell, and to his last days he would stick his nose to the vent and tell us when we were coming up on the Dairy Queen, and he still would have jumped through the window if he had gotten a chance.
He should have been named White Fang.
He sits now as I write this, watching me, waiting, his brown eyes soft but alert, full of love but without nonsense, his black-and-white coat shining in the New Mexico sun streaming through the window. He is old now—I think eighteen or twenty—and he is staid except when he feels like playing and heis full of a gentle honor that I will never come close to achieving.
Josh is the quintessential Border collie. In many circles that would be all that needed to be said—he has all the traits of Border collies. He is loving, thoughtful, wonderfully intelligent—frighteningly so at times—and completely and totally devoted to the person he views as his master.
And yet…
Somehow, in some way he is different. Perhaps that is true of all Border collies, that they really
are
different, that they key in to the person they are with, and since all people are different all Border collies are different. I recently gave a Border collie pup to a friend who lives in a city—contrary to popular belief, they do not need to run all the
pounds
of tomatoes.)
But there were rogues, some that took too much, some that were violent. The worst of these were the bears. Most of them were mellow, some less so, and when they became too aggressive I would shoot a high-powered rifle near them and scare them off. This worked for a long time but some of them became accustomed to the crack of the rifle and didn’t run; they would ignore yelling or banging of pans, but even then we were hesitant to go to the next phase—destroying the bear. By law, we were allowed to if they destroyed property or threatened us, but I hada rule that if they didn’t actually attack one of the sled dogs—frequently they ate with the dogs and didn’t bother them—or a person I would not shoot them. Indeed, in all my years of running dogs I had to shoot only one bear.
But one particular bear was becoming a problem. It had been in the garden several times and although it ran when I fired warning shots it seemed to hesitate. I decided it would be good to watch it.
But when the problem bear came back I wasn’t there. I was in the kitchen and my wife was working in the garden. Quincy, as always, was by her side and she was on her hands and knees weeding when she heard a strange
whoofing
sound nearby and looked up to see the problem bear coming at her. There was no warning, no stance, no threat— it was down and moving toward her.
We had procedures. Do not make eye contact,get up, back away, and she did all these things. They did not work. It kept coming and was clearly going to attack, was attacking, when Quincy went for the bear like a fur-covered bullet.
It was a draw as to who was more astonished, the bear or my wife. Quincy launched himself from the ground, four-inch legs pumping, and caught the bear in the center of its chest. He grabbed a mouthful of fur and hung on, clinging like a burr. Surprised, the bear stopped and tried to bite at Quincy but the dog was in too close. The bear started scraping with its front paws and my wife chose that moment to use all the good luck from the rest of her life. She rushed in, grabbed Quincy, pulled him off the bear and ran for the house. For some reason—shock, perhaps—the bear did not follow her, and Quincy, miraculously, was not injured. Later, at the vet’s, we couldn’t find a scratch on him, nor any internal injuries.
Quincy just passed on last year at the ripe old age (he was well on when we got him in Alaska) of eighteen or twenty years, as near as the doctor could figure. At the end he was blind and close to deaf but he could still smell, and to his last days he would stick his nose to the vent and tell us when we were coming up on the Dairy Queen, and he still would have jumped through the window if he had gotten a chance.
He should have been named White Fang.
He sits now as I write this, watching me, waiting, his brown eyes soft but alert, full of love but without nonsense, his black-and-white coat shining in the New Mexico sun streaming through the window. He is old now—I think eighteen or twenty—and he is staid except when he feels like playing and heis full of a gentle honor that I will never come close to achieving.
Josh is the quintessential Border collie. In many circles that would be all that needed to be said—he has all the traits of Border collies. He is loving, thoughtful, wonderfully intelligent—frighteningly so at times—and completely and totally devoted to the person he views as his master.
And yet…
Somehow, in some way he is different. Perhaps that is true of all Border collies, that they really
are
different, that they key in to the person they are with, and since all people are different all Border collies are different. I recently gave a Border collie pup to a friend who lives in a city—contrary to popular belief, they do not need to run all the
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