ESTESBOG

 by Peter Walker

His name was Tiny. He belonged to the Tedfords who lived up the hill from my grandparents in rural southwestern Maine.

He was quite possibly the oddest little dog I’ll ever see. Physically he looked like a critter made of leftover parts and pieces. His head was pretty much golden retriever both in size and appearance. But his body was more or less basset hound. So his head was way too big for his body.

His legs were extremely short and his tail stood straight up. His hair was long and frilly – a mixture of yellows and whites. The upper half of his tail had long white hair trailing off like the big flag on a sailboat’s mast.

            If he looked absurd, you should have heard him try to bark! Try as he might, the only thing Tiny could muster was a loud coughing noise like a circus sea lion. It always made people laugh.

            But Tiny had heart. His chosen profession was neighborhood greeter and ambassador of friendship.

Every morning Tiny would make the rounds from his house to the half dozen or so houses down the hill. Several of the neighbors were elderly and very much looked forward to Tiny’s enthusiastic morning visits. More than one of the elderly neighbor’s asked to adopt Tiny; but he better served the world as an equal opportunity friend to all.

My best friend – and the only other high school age boy within several miles of my home during that part of my life – was Gayland Brackett, who lived almost across the road from Tiny’s house. One day Gayland was loading up his gear for a pheasant hunt while Tiny supervised the job. On a whim, Gayland invited him along.

Now Tiny looked about as much like a bird dog as a poodle resembles a parrot! As far as anyone knew, Tiny had never gone bird hunting – or even chased a chicken!

Perhaps somewhere in his muddled ancestry, one of Tiny’s antecedents was a setter or a spaniel. Much to Gayland’s surprise, the little guy figured out how to play the game in no time at all!

Plowing through the thick grass was a problem for a little dog with minimum clearance. He would have been very hard to see had it not been for the great white banner flapping from his upright tail.

When Tiny encountered pheasant scent, he determined the general area from which it was emanating, then set off in a wide circle around the source. It was better than a point. As the funny little dog gradually tightened his circles and closed in on the pheasant, the bird crouched and sat tight. Finally, with Tiny only a couple of feet away, the pheasant would burst into the air with a cackle.

Although the little dog’s head was large enough to be a retriever’s, Tiny’s 7-inch legs were just not suitable for bringing back a downed bird. That, too, was no problem for Tiny’s improvisation. Tiny would simply find the dead bird, then sit on it and bark like a seal!

Thus the neighborhood mascot launched a second career as an unorthodox, but extremely effective pheasant dog. In all my years of working in conservation agencies, I’ve never seen a more unique dog. Tiny made the most he could with what he was given, and that was more than enough.