LETTERS FROM HOME: THE ANIMAL FARM

Dec. 29, 1994

The

animal

farm

Dear Pat,

Our neighbor Margie returns tomorrow to take custody of the four dogs we've been sitting over the holidays. Maybe DC and I aren't meant to be the St. Francises of Southeast Missouri.

For instance, how do you convince a Great Dane the size of a Harley to do what you want her to do? We tried speaking with authority, begging, bribes of food, physical force and finally good old yelling. She sat on her haunches and refused to move -- until we changed our minds about what we wanted her to do.

That dilemma was minor compared to the evening of angst caused by her friend Lacey, a Rottweiler-hound dog mix who one day should have "Born to Roam" inscribed on her tombstone. She is a black flash of lightning crossing the lawn to intercept a wayward pickup truck, and steals off to hide a bone with the nonchalance of a veteran burglar.

She returns from the boneyard with her snout covered in dirt or mud. Lacey digs with her paws but buries with her nose. A dog thing, no doubt.

When it's time to tie her up in the barn, Lacey blends into the rocks and trees until the human beings leave. Whereupon she can rove the nearby fields the rest of the day.

On those few times she's caught, she howls the inconsolable agony of a free spirit who has been tethered.

Margie's only concern about Lacey's Houdini act is that she might injure herself someday and not even be able to crawl back home.

The worry watch began when DC and I returned home the night after Christmas. Lacey wasn't around. Now it was my turn to roam the moonless fields, waving a lantern and calling her name. Dogs barked their answers all over the hills but none of them was Lacey.

Finally, we called the young man who's feeding Margie's horses to ask if he'd seen her. He brought over a powerful spotlight and we cruised the county roads, playing the light over fields and probing ditches and culverts, half hoping not to find her. We saw the lime green eyes of some varmints, but none of them was Lacey.

DC and I paced like parents whose teenager is hours overdue. All those inconsiderations inflicted on our own parents long ago came back around in a whoosh.

When we heard the horses whinnying and the dogs barking one night earlier this year, Margie said she thought coyotes were about. I wondered if they might attack a lone dog, even a big one like Lacey.

Most of all, I thought of the full-body wag she always greets us with.

At 1:30 in the morning, DC heard scratching on the door.

Only then did I wonder what great adventure must have kept her.

Maybe a romantic interlude with a new dog in town. Or one just home for the holidays.

Perhaps she was kidnapped and forced to endure the indignity of wearing those little doggie antlers in someone's family picture.

DC suggested she might have encountered a bear. At least that's what I heard her say. She claims she said Lacey might have been chasing a deer far into the woods.

Much as I doubt any bears have been seen in these parts of Missouri during the second half of the 20th century, the bear theory comes closest to suiting my image of her.

I am fond of the way Valentine the Great Dane lays her head against your arm, demanding to be petted, and of the sound McGyver the Scotty puppy makes when he scampers on mice feet across the floor, and 'Bama the Jack Russell terrier's hunting instincts are astounding.

But the dream of every man is a dog who becomes a myth.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a member of the Southeast Missourian news staff.