We are living in a time of ever increasing technological advances, among which is the mobile, cellular
telephone. I have one; you have one; nearly everyone has one.
Whereas I do not recall ever not having a telephone in the house, I can certainly recall the days of the
rotary dial and party lines. If the phone rang once, the call was not for your house; if the phone rang twice,
then you could pick it up – the call was for you.
These days I no longer have a land line to my house. Land lines are just too expensive compared to the
expense of a regular cell phone, so the cell phone is all I have. And even though I have a plan that allows
me to make virtually any call to anywhere I want all for the same cost, I rarely use my phone. I am just not a
talker. Also, I rarely answer my phone even on the rare occasion that it rings. If I do not recognize the
number I quite often ignore the call. I figure that if the caller is someone to whom I want to talk, I would
have called that person; otherwise, the caller will leave a message, which I can retrieve at my convenience.
So it became quite an inconvenience one day when my cell phone started going off at a rate to which I was
not accustomed. I had ignored the initial ring, but that initial ring was quickly followed by another, then
another, and so continued until I was simply forced to either turn off my phone or answer the call.
I have been known to turn off my phone in order to squelch the annoying noise, but on that occasion I
relented and answered the call instead.
On the other end was a nearby relative calling with a dire and urgent warning: a mad dog was in the area. A
dog, which appeared to have rabies was seen in the road near where I live, and the nearby neighbor was
calling to warn me.
I am your ultimate skeptic. I figured that the caller, whom I knew and had previously surmised to be a bit
emotional and over-reactive, was indeed exhibiting a moment of psychosis, but I nonetheless thanked her
for her call and after enduring several minutes of her outpouring of emotion found a diplomatic way to end
the conversation.
Almost immediately upon ending the phone conversation I heard my dogs. They had erupted in one of their
loud and very annoying spasms of barking, raising such a din that I was forced to go into the yard to make
sure that they were not involved in a big fight among themselves, or otherwise creating some other form of
havoc.
At the time of this event, which I describe, I had not yet built the fence, which surrounds the house at
Willow Oak. I had only recently purchased the 16 acre piece of land with its brick house, and only the back
yard was fenced in. It was in the back yard that I kept my dogs, and whereas the fence mostly did a good job
of keeping the dogs in, it had some weak spots, and had been known to not only fail to keep the dogs in,
but had failed to keep other wild animals from entering.
I had let the dogs out one morning only to find them chasing a fawn, a baby deer around the yard. The fawn
had managed to find a way into the fenced area, and only after chasing the dogs around myself did I manage
to save the spotted fawn from some unknown nefarious outcome. The deer managed to find a crack in the
fence and through it escaped to that from whence it came: the woods that surround Willow Oak.
Back to my story, the dogs had started a row, and were busily barking away at some heretofore unknown
and unseen creature, so I went to investigate. What I saw that day, standing just on the other side of the
fence opposite my gang of dogs was the meanest and scariest looking creature I had ever until that day
seen: a large brindle-colored dog, with huge jowls and foaming at the mouth, was standing very menacingly
within mere inches of my gang of dogs, and with only that precarious piece of fencing separating them.
Hurriedly I gathered my crew in and safely ensconced them inside the house. When I returned to observe
the dog, lo and behold! The dog had already managed to find a way inside the fence!
I called the animal shelter and asked for assistance. Normally the shelter will respond, but quite frankly
they are usually overwhelmed and often cannot provide immediate assistance, so I tried the sheriff’s
department. After informing the sheriff’s deputy with whom I spoke, where I live, I was told summarily that
the sheriff’s department could do nothing. There are no leash laws for dogs in the county, so the sheriff’s
department could do nothing.
Well, in my mind the sheriff’s department either could do nothing or would do nothing; nonetheless, a
citizen of the county was calling to report the presence of a possible rabid dog in his yard, and surely there
must be some redress to such a grievance, but no, I was once again sternly informed that the matter was a
personal one and would have to be dealt with by me, by myself alone.
Well, great. What a situation to be in! So I stood inside my house, looking through a window into the back
yard at what for all the world appeared to be a dog with rabies, foaming at the mouth, with long drools
hanging to the ground, red blood-shot eyes, and very, very sick indeed.
I had managed to move my dogs out of possible harm’s way, but I had cats outside, and I was concerned for
their safety. So I contemplated the unthinkable.
I have had the very sad experience of having to observe the shooting of a dog. A neighbor’s dog was hit
by a car in the road near my house, and the dog managed to crawl to the edge of the road right squarely in
front of my house. Eventually the neighbor put the dog out of its misery with a single bullet to the head. It
was a sight that sickened me, and one that I hoped I would never see again; and certainly a deed, which I
hoped I would never find myself having to perform.
Nevertheless, here I was with a strange and possible rabid and certainly very sick dog in my back yard, and
neither the shelter not the sheriff’s department were able to help. So I retrieved the only gun I own, a .22
rifle, which I keep loaded in a closet.
I don’t mess with guns much, but when I was younger I did a lot of shooting. There was a day when
shooting a defenseless creature was of no matter to me. But I got over that, and today I would never shoot
one of God’s living creatures unless I somehow deemed the act to be completely unavoidable.
I am not passing judgment on the sport of hunting or the practice of hunting for food. I cannot declare that
I think those activities to be wrong. Indeed, shooting a deer is no more wrong than catching a fish, but I
must admit here and now for all to read, I have come to the point in my life that I am loathe to take the life of
any creature.
Willow oak has a gorgeous 2-acre pond, filled with catfish, bass, and bream, and in my lifetime I have caught
many of all kinds of fish; but today I simply cannot bring myself to bait a hook and drop it into the water. Call
me a wuss or a ninny or whatever; but there it is.
However, there I found myself that day faced with having to make the difficult choice to shoot the life out of
an animal, whose disposition I did not know, but I admittedly knew that it was probably the only course of
action I could possibly take. Shooting the dog would not only solve the immediate problem I had, but it
would also put the poor creature out of his own misery and save him a possible worse outcome later on.
I am a pretty good shot. When I was a kid I owned a pellet gun, and I would practice with it for hours. I
would take the tops off of coke bottles, then resting the tops upside down on the rim of the bottles, I would
shoot the tops off without breaking the bottles. I became pretty good at doing that.
I had the .22 in my hand, and having opened a window, and having removed the screen I rested the stock of
the gun on the window still, crouched down and began to stalk to dangerous animal outside.
Not much stalking needed to be done; the dog had not moved around very much, and indeed he was not
moving much at all. As a matter of fact, the dog had presented himself as a very easy target – only about 30
feet away, and facing squarely in my direction.
There he was, head hanging low, tail drooped between his legs. His nose was very low to the ground, and
he appeared to me to be wretching.
I placed the bead of the sight squarely between the dog’s eyes and set myself to pull the trigger. Looking
into the dog’s face I noticed that he had made eye contact with me, and for a second or two we looked at
each other – he looking at me, sad and forlorn, haggard and worn; I looking at him, worried and weary; torn
and concerned. I looked into the face of a creature whose life I was about to end. The thought filled me
with dread.
My finger was on the trigger; I had a bead; all I had to do was pull the trigger and the whole thing would be
over. The dog would be dead in an instant; he wouldn’t feel a thing; and we could all go back to feeling
safe and secure.
There are two scenes that flood my mind whenever I think of shooting a rabid dog: the scene from Ole
Yeller, when Travis has to shoot his dog, which is obviously infected with the dreaded rabies. And I think of
the mad dog that Atticus Finch shoots in the movie To Kill a Mockingbird.
In each case the dog had all the classic symptoms of a rabid animal, one of which is erratic and
uncontrollable spasms; the other of which was an aggressive disposition. And in both cases it was
observed that a dog with rabies will not eat and has a fear of water.
I shook my head and took aim. I do not use a scope: no need; my sight is around 20/10, and I can see a fly in
a cows tail from 100 yards away. With the bead set squarely between the eyes of the dog I was about to
shoot I noticed something green about the dog’s snout. I had not noticed it before, but just as I was
squeezing the trigger the dog had reared his head slightly and I could see his snout and his mouth, and
through all the long drools that hung from the dog’s mouth were sure and tell-tale signs of …, of grass!
The dog had been munching on grass! Wet grass! The dog had been chewing on grass, and chewing on
grass is a sure sign of upset stomach! All dogs chew grass when they are experiencing a little heart burn!
And heart burn is a lot different from rabies!
So, I lowered the muzzle of the gun and reset the safety. It was simply not in me that day to shoot that dog.
There was no need to do so. Instead I stepped onto my carport and placed a bowl of food and some water.
From the safety of the window I observed the dog as he eventually found the bowl, scarfed down the food
and lapped up the water. No. This dog has no fear of water! No, he does not have hydrophobia!
Sampson, “Sam” as I call him, has been with me for these several years now. He is older and grayer, but he
is still as calm and as low-key today as he was that day I first saw him. He was sick that day, there is no
doubt about that, but all he needed was some good grub, some clean water, a few vitamins, and a couple of
shots, and within a very short time his previously emaciated appearance cleared up, and his disposition
perked up. He still gets drools from his mouth, but that’s just a trait of his. He still walks about with that low-
key, down-in-the-mouth look, but that is just because he is a docile, low-key, cool and calm mutt. Sam is a fit
and healthy and very happy pup with a good spirit and good health. That would be rabies-negative good
health!
| Mad Dog Daniel Taylor |
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