Canine Destiny

Firstly, before I begin exploring the anecdotes of my own life I would like to say that this story is in no way intended to be a sad expression of my childhood. It is supposed to be a funny story though it has a rather depressing ending. I am reminded of this story periodically by black and white dogs and softly furry white rabbits. And shortly you will see why.

When I was a young boy, about seven years womb-removed, my mom bought a dog. Not just any dog, mind you, but a female Alaskan Malamute that we named Sierra after the sometimes snowcapped western mountain range. Sierra was a playful dog that quickly became much larger and stronger than me. I remember sitting on her back and having her race me around my backyard like a pony. Everyone yelled at me to stop "riding the dog" but it was too much fun and, being a little troublemaker, I couldn't resist.

The funny thing about Malamutes - I don't know if it was specific to Sierra - is they seem to talk. I think Sierra could say "I love you" but in a very Scooby-Doo sort of way. Every time my family would assemble for dinner near the sliding door to the backyard, Sierra would stand close by and howl like mad. If you made eye contact with her and tried to talk to her, she would mimic the rough sounds of your voice.

That dog was a beast, but she was always nothing but a lady to me. I remember having a few of my friends come over to see her and she would playfully pounce on them with her front paws, knock them down onto my sun-washed deck, and, grasping the back of their shirts with her mouth, she would drag them around until an adult came to extricate the screaming child from the jaws of the savage animal. She never did that to me though. She was a great dog, but, looking back at the situation now, she was definitely not an ideal dog for a small boy.

My family moved with Sierra to Knightsen, California, a small farming town far removed from nearly everything except dirt and boredom. We lived on a dried up old almond orchard with dead and neglected trees spread out over even intervals covering some forty acres. The dog loved living out there. She could run up and down, make all the noise she wanted, and, of course, mercilessly destroy smaller creatures like squirrels, gophers, and the occasional shy raccoon.

One day our neighbors, who lived very close to our house, came over to report some unfortunate news. In the darkness of night one of their lambs had either been ravaged by a werewolf or killed by our mirthful Sierra. The poor dark red/snow white creature was missing large chunks of itself in various different places. My brother Neal had to bury the lamb and my mother had to pay for its gruesome death.

And do you know what that fucking dog did after that? She dug up the lamb and chewed it. So Neal buried it again. And once more Sierra dug the lamb up and gnawed at its carcass. He finally ended up just chaining the dog to the dead lamb just to teach her a lesson, but she kept eating it. You could hear the chains lightly clank themselves together and the sound of a lonely ravenous dog moan out to be unchained. She wasn't locked up for long, though. I think we couldn't bear to have her constrained for an entire day.

That pattern didn't end with only one lamb. Sierra got another one before we had to leave Knightsen. It's really a good thing that the stupid dog didn't get shot trying to murder our neighbor's livestock. I would have been heartbroken.

Before we left I made my mom buy me another animal: the cutest long eared white rabbit you ever saw. I named him Sonic, after the popular video game hedgehog. Sonic lived in his cage, licked his salt lick, and drank from his upside down water bottle like a good little rabbit and never really made much trouble. Of course we never even thought of letting the rabbit out of his cage when Sierra was around, that would be absolute foolishness.

So, after the death of the lambs, Sierra, Sonic, and my family moved back to our small house in Antioch where Sierra, together with Sonic, shared the backyard. There was a rabbit hutch in the yard that, judging by the color of the wood, was made of the same lumber as the faded deck. This was Sonic's rabbit apartment. The hutch was rudimentary at best, a simple structure of two by fours, chicken wire, and a six inch piece of wood to that latched on the front to hold the large swinging door shut.

I would go visit Sierra and Sonic nearly every day. They were great and loving animals and devoured my attention whenever I saw them.

One day as I returned home from school I went out to see Sierra and Sonic in their shared space and was absolutely shocked at what I discovered. "SIERRA! SIERRA!" I called, but she wasn't in our small backyard. "SIERRA!!!! SIERRA!!!!!!" I screamed. Then I noticed that the Sonic's apartment door was wide open and he was gone too. Upon closer inspection of the rest of the back yard, I noticed that both animals were indeed long gone and the only remnants of both of them were patches of soft white hair strewn around the thirsty dry ground.

I asked my mom what happened to the dog and the bunny and she said very simply, "Sierra ate Sonic so I took her to the pound." So that was it: I lost two of my quadrupedal friends in one short afternoon.


I wonder what happened to Sierra after she was institutionalized. I bet she was adopted by some family that fell in love with her gentle and poofy exterior. I doubt the adopting family would suspect that that dog had tasted blood more than once. I think when you tally it all up, Sierra killed two lambs, one rabbit, and at least one hundred slender, scurrying squirrels. She may have been a monster; she may have been related to Stephen King's "Cujo" in some strong way, but she was mine. She was my bloodthirsty, hardcore killing machine if only for a short while. To this day when I see a big fluffy black and white dog pass me by in the street, three words always immediately force their way into my head: "RRYE RRRUV RRRRHOOOO!!!!!!!!!"