Short Story About My Dog Mike

We have had more snow in two days than since an early storm in November. It has been blowing a gale for those two days, this morning Sue’s car wasn’t going anywhere.

It’s also cold, we are burning a lot more wood than I expected. Between moving snow with the tractor and cutting wood, it’s been a busy week.

That level of distraction made it difficult to finish the next episode of my Camino de Santiago story in time for this post. You will have to wait until next week.

A newsletter I follow challenged readers to submit a short story. There were three rules, it must be a story about a dog, include a photograph of a dog and use fewer than 335 words.

For someone who, according to Grammarly writes over 20 000 words including two or three 1000 + word posts every week that was a challenge I could not resist.

It was an excellent exercise in trimming superfluous words.

Here it is.

Mike – A Short Story

Mike should not have been my dog.

Sue and I had six dogs on our farm in Africa. My two large ones, her two medium-sized and an ankle snapper each.  Named after my father’s favourite dog – an English Bull Terrier – I had always liked big dogs.

Having our older dogs put down and finding homes for two when we left Africa because of political chaos was heart-wrenching. We were never going to risk the emotional cost of sharing our lives with dogs again.

We were conned into taking Mike after arriving in Canada.

A neighbour showed me his Border Collie cross bitch with three pups ready for weaning.  Dad was a Springer Spaniel.

Bill had found homes for the female pup and one of the males. He could not keep the other. Bill had visited our part of Africa some years before and knew I would be a soft touch.

Putting on his poker face he said the pup would be put down. Would I recommend drowning or shooting? 

Mike came home with me.

Our farmhouse was set back from the road. Most times, Mike ran free.

In 12 years, Mike only crossed the road twice.

Mike saw an elderly man cycling up the road and took off like a rabbit. I ran after him across the field, my boots picking up layers of mud with every step, the more I shouted at Mike, the faster the cyclist pedalled. I thought we would both have heart attacks. Mike didn’t catch him.

The second was when he spotted two neighbours riding horses. He loved coming with us when we rode our horses. He shot across the road in front of a car, circled the horses and came back in front of another car. One horse objected and threw her rider.

No injuries to humans, animals or cars.

In late 2016, Mike got sick and had to be put down. He is buried near our house, I see his grave every time I go out.

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It’s been over three years since I buried Mike, I would love to have another dog but with 8 cats and no fences, another regular dog would not be practical. A miniature rug-rat type of dog just does not appeal to me and it’s life would be at risk from our bigger cats. They are formidable hunters. Squirrels, rabbits and chipmunks keep well away from our house and we do not have a rat or mouse problem.

I had written about Mike before in this post.

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