We were going to get another dog. This time we were picking a Snooty pup. I don't know where we went cause it wasn't Snooty's home---must have been the female's home. Actually, I don't remember a home at all. The pups were in a barn. Anyways, Daddy let me pick and I carried the pup outside the barn and sat down to play with him. All the grown-up folks came out and stood around talking. My pup got his name when a cat appeared. He tried to take off after the cat but I held on tight. Then he started screaming. NO joke. He didn't bark. He screamed---one long huge scram with all different pitches. At that moment, I named him Screamer. I can still see the smile on Daddy's face. I bet he thought he really had something!
We got Screamer home and soon he got sick. We had fixed him a box in the living room to sleep in. He was diagnosed with coxidiosis. I don't know how to spell it but I will never forget that word. He was passing jelly with blood. He must have been sick for a while because my bedroom got rearranged during his sickness. When I first moved him into my room, he was supposed to sleep in his box beside my bed. Of course, I snuck him into the bed with me. That first night I didn't sleep at all for fear I would knock him off the bed. I put him right on the edge. I suppose I thought I would get in less trouble if I got caught with him on the edge instead of the middle of the bed. Go figure! I can't remember how it came about, but he was allowed to sleep with me as long as I didn't let him use the bathroom in the bed. That meant I had to take him out every hour or so all night long. And I did. He finally got to where he would whimper and lick my face to wake me up so I could take him out.
Screamer overcame his sickness and got his own house and grew into a good-looking dog. I'd take him for walks and roll around with him in the loft of our barn. He never did bite hard enough to break the skin. He wouldn't quit playing. Daddy never did breed him. He was just my pet!
We moved from that house onto a farm. Raised chickens and cows. I remember one winter I went in the pasture to the barn to get a bale of hay. I climbed up into the loft and threw out the hay. By the time I walked out of the barn, the whole herd of cows was coming toward the hay. I ran and grabbed it and threw it over the gate and leaped onto the gate just in time not to get trampled. I reckon I lived dangerously (or either was a bit stupid??). One time I wore my RED JACKET into the pasture heading to the creek. I got even with the barn and heard something and turned around to find our bull (the red kind with the big hump) looking at me snorting and stomping. At least I was smart enough not to run! I had a tree picked out to climb if he charged me. I called out for Mama but she didn't answer. He finally lost interest and I walked on.
On weekends I would take Screamer for all day walks. We would catch crawfish out of the creek and just piddle around. We were walking the creek one day when a snake fell in the creek a few feet upstream from us. Snakes are my greatest fear. I guess it's true that fear boosts strength cause I picked up Screamer and climbed straight up a six foot bank! Didn't even remember doing it. Don't see how I done it. Just remember my legs shaking for a long time. We didn't get back in that creek that day.
Our farm was about a mile from Mashburn bottoms. That's where we walked all the dogs. It was thousands of acres of woods and fields that went all the way to the Chattahoochee River. There was a gas pipeline (like a power line) that ran from the river thru our land and on.
Years went by and I went off to college. Daddy sold the farm and bought a house in a subdivision. He got rid of all the dogs. It was decided that my brother's friend, Steve, would take Screamer. That was ok. I could still see him on the weekends which was all the attention he got anyways---if then. I went and visited him a few times but the last time I went to Steve's house, I almost got killed.
It was pretty early one Saturday morning and I was in seeing distance of Steve's house. He kept Screamer in the huge front yard. As I neared the driveway, I noticed Screamer was gone----his house gone too. My heart dropped. All the worst things were running thru my mind and I turned left right in front of a car. I wouldn't have even known I did that but the car's horn was blowing like crazy. Luckily, I didn't get hit! I knocked on the door to find out that Steve had let a man a couple of miles away have Screamer. I got directions to the man's house and drove straight there. When I got there, Screamer's house was near the porch but Screamer wasn't there. The man came to the door and said he let his buddy take him for a couple of weeks to get the tumor took off his neck. Well, I was getting pretty upset by now. I finally convinced the man to give me directions to his buddy's house so I could see him. He gave me directions but not the right directions. His buddy lived about 20 miles away and I was to make a right turn off Hwy 306 onto a road that didn't exist. I was determined to find my dog by this time so I took every right turn off that highway to the county line. No luck. So I started taking all the roads to the left. Finally, on a narrow beat up road, I saw a make shift dog house behind a trailer. I pulled into the drive and went straight back there. It was Screamer! A man came out of the house and all I said was, "I came to get my dog". I loaded him into the front seat and left. I don't think that man ever said a word to me. I went back to the man who gave me the bad directions and loaded Screamer's house in my trunk. I never talked to those men or Steve again.
When I got Screamer back to Daddy's subdivision house, he told me I couldn't keep him there. He was right. Other people's kids played in our yard all the time. Daddy said he wouldn't be responsible for him while I was at college. Well, I sure wasn't gonna give him back to those men! There was something fishy there. Daddy told me that Snooty's owner lived about 2 miles from my college and maybe I could keep him there. So I headed back to college. I got there late so I let Screamer sleep in my dorm room. The next day I took him for a walk around campus before I carried him down to his Daddy's home.
Of course it was ok with Snooty's owner. I gave him a very little bit of money for food and visited him several times. One time I tried nailing plastic to his house to fix the leak but I reckon he ripped it off. Even though I passed by there at least four times a week, I got to where I rarely stopped. About a year later he called Daddy to see if I wanted to sell Screamer to a man in (Alabama??) for a stud dog. I called him back and said that would be ok and he could keep the money for feeding and caring for him for so long. Screamer was at least 10 years old then and I figured he had died and the man didn't have the heart to tell me.
I found out about a month ago that Screamer was bred and he even produced one champion. He even has a grandson named Screamer. I wonder if that dogs screams too?
(If the folks that bought Screamer reads this, PLEASE CONTACT ME. I would love to talk to you.) RENE
