Comments on: BUFFALO LIGHTS: Maryland to New Mexico – Part III, Chapter 5, “Devil Dogs of San Cristobal”

By: Kenneth Webb

Kenneth Webb — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 23:07:37 +0000

You definitely have a different way of looking at the world of dogs once you’ve been on the receiving end of this kind of thing. Life is generally like that – it’s hard to idealize any person, place or thing once you’ve had first-hand experience of it or them. That’s the way I like it anyhow. I look forward to having a dog again some day.

By: JHF

JHF — Sun, 28 Mar 2010 17:15:09 +0000

You know, I used to deliver papers via motor scooter in Abilene, too, only the Dallas Morning News. I once had a German Shepherd actually bite and clamp onto the canvas “saddlebags” on the back of my Lambretta–dragged him 50 feet or so before he let go, and wished I’d had a water pistol full of ammonia.

By: Kenneth Webb

Kenneth Webb — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 10:32:29 +0000

I’m a dog-lover myself, and we always had a free-ranging lovable dog at our place when I was a kid. But you’ve got to be realistic about canines. In Abilene in those days dogs mostly weren’t fenced in, whether they were strays or owned. And all dogs have a territorial competitive spirit in them. My father – a postman for much of his life – always carried a leather strap to defend himself. Sometimes this led to words with owners, claiming that their darlings could never have lept and snarled at a kindly gentleman carrying mail (unless provoked!).

I delivered newspapers and had similar confrontations, especially in the early morning when there was noone up but me and the dogs of the town. I saw this as a sport. I liked to race away from these curs on my motor scooter, thwacking them about the ears with a rolled-up paper. No canine ever got seriously damaged by either my father’s strap or even the fattest issue of the Abilene Reporter-News wielded by me.

Dogs are essentially kids that never grew up. Kids can also turn vicious from time to time and also need the odd thwacking. Neither dogs nor kids get thwacked much any more. The animal-lovers and child psychologists aren’t entirely wrong on these points. I only say that having either a dog or a child is a strenuous business.