2005-06-04 - 10:16 a.m.
I could hear Beau sloshing through the water at the bottom of the ravine as Chance walked with me, skirting the edge of the first field and heading into the second. Halfway to the boundary oak we were still missing our companion, so at a high point that afforded a view in all directions I stopped and called. I waited, and out of the quiet I heard a distant bleat. Then whatever bleated did it again, followed by a sharp, single bark--a yipping squeak--that I recognized as Beau’s excited distress call. I thought he might have one of the neighbor’s heifers cornered and started off with some anxiousness tracking the sounds.
But then they stopped. I stood at the edge of the field, looking for a way through the brush, searching for an opening in the old barb-wire fence. And then I heard the bleat again.
I saw white spots moving on the brown floor of the woods before the image became a recognizable form. But I only saw the form because I saw Beau before it, looking my way. His front legs engaged themselves in a short prancing dance that turned him briefly my way before directing him back toward the fawn. I called; he yip-squeaked again and then, remarkably, came. But then Chance saw prey and was gone.
And then everything turned. I yelled after them, “Come… Come... Come…” frantic at the prospect of slaughter, knowing, unlike those innocent owners who could never conceive of their dogs doing such things, that my pets were, if only latently, killers. When occasion arose, they would react, wired to do what the law of natural selection required they must. I had once seen the two of them working in tandem, surrounding a woodchuck, tearing it apart within seconds. Two thousand years of domestication could not erase completely the genetic fact of their origin.
I ran after them and caught up only because they had already caught up to and captured the young deer. Beau had his head over the fawn, trying to enwrap its neck with his own. I called again. “Come… Come… Damn you, Come…”
It was the Damn you that did it, no doubt, for they did eventually come, looking back regretfully at what they were leaving. Only once did Chance disobey after that, but just briefly, resuming the chase when the fawn first started off. But then I managed to grab and hold them both, clenching the hair of their backs in my fingers, still mad, but moderating the anger until it came out as praise. “Good boys… Good boys…” I cooed soft encouragement, still holding them, not trusting them a bit. And neither did the fawn, stumbling in shock as it looked back, amazed to be given another chance.
