My first was a genuine Heinz 57 out of my Grandpa's farm dogs. He was heck on wheels like his daddy. 2 escaped prisoners tried to break in the house, they did not make it, Mom was scared to death. They were found with lots of dog bites and torn clothing. a 16 year old farm kid ran over him. Thought it was funny.
Got a female out of one of Grandpas dogs, the neighbors farm dog knocked her up and she died delivering pups. I was told no more dogs. At 8 dad let me sneak one of grandpas pups home, he was the runt of the litter and no one wanted it, I saved it from a late night swim in a gunny sack. That was 1954. I was 8. I took him every where with me. I had a Daisy Model 25 pump which had the fastest BB velocity of any BB gun, ever. It would drop squirrels or rabbits dead with a head shot.
I would point out jumping squirrels to him, he ended up being a super hunting dog. When he barked the squirrel was in that tree. He was unique, if someone hit me he bit them, once only dad went to whip me, my dog jumped in the middle and it was a heck of a fight.
Westerns were big on TV then, Apache Indians were the meanest baddest folks on the tube. I named my do Apache.
The neighbor had a big old Heinz farm dog who took on guard serious, I had to peddle my bike like heck to get by there and not get bit too bad.
One day as I got off the bus I noticed a string of dead kittens across our farm road and the mother cat dead at the base of the tree next to the lane. I recognized it as the cat that belonged to the girl on the next farm, whose brother ran over my first dog, whose daddy's dog bit me regular and their dog kept coming to our house whupping Apache and eating his food. I looked up at her, I'll never forget, tears were streaming down her face. Yet I had no regret to share with her.
The following spring Apache would have been about a year old. We were eating dinner and heard the dog fight start. Figured Apache would get loose and run home. I hated the neighbors dog real bad.
A few times Apache was caught by the bigger dog close to their hose and the farmer had to peel his dog off Apache.
That night the fight had started at the edge of our yard and was moving away from our house instead of to it. The fight has a more serious sound, before it was I'm gonna kick you tail little pup, now it was I going to terminate you. I finally started pumping out tears and yelled at my Dad to come with me the older do is killing Apache.
I picked up a stick on the way, this was so wrong my poor pup was being pushed further towards the wrong place. I'm sprinting through the buck brush, Dad was on my tail, the neighbor had evidently quit eating and was slowly, molasses slow, walking up there to perhaps save my dog. There were two dog noises coming out of the brush, one was a viscous growl that sounded like pure primitive wolf and the other was a high pitched whine that was perhaps a dog pleading to have it's life spared.
When I burst through the brush I prepared to hammer the neighbors dog with my war club, I saw Apache on top, growling like a mad dog, all the whuppins, all the times his food was stolen is now over, the other dog had lots of hair missing and was pretty bloody. The neighbors dog was whining and pleading for his life. I stopped and watched thinking that Apache might need to continue to make sure the other dog got the picture. Well ole Mister we ran over your dog without an apology, or the ole boy who never got on his dog for chasing and biting us kids, mr smug when his dog was on top now started yelling and screaming, OMG he's killing my dog, I watched, Dad watched, the neighbors screams started sounding like his dogs whining. I grabbed Apache by the collar and pulled him off. The old boys dog limped, whined and bled as he went home.
When we rode our bike past that farm Apache ran with us, never were we even barked at after that.
That was my first dog. He lived a long wonderful life on our farm. He never started a fight, he ignored other dogs. Every male dog that ended up thinking Apache was a weakling because he ignored them found out differently in a few seconds. I did not and do believe in dog fights. But when the world was a little different dogs did fight over who would be the Alpha dog. Apache was the Alpha dog of dogs.
