Can You Hear Me Now?

Today, began with me giving Kinky a wake up call, so he could do an early interview. I woke him up, as I always do, by calling his dogs, aka The Friedmans, names, one by one, which causes them to jump off of his bed—barking nonstop! Before calling the last name, Kinky answered the phone. “Okay, I’m up, Nance—thanks,” Kinky said. “Give me a few minutes, and then come on over and drink some coffee with me.”

Fifteen minutes later, Kinky and I were drinking coffee, in the Lodge, and watching Imus on the television, until it was time for his interview.

I returned to the trailer, and cooked Tony and me breakfast. After our meal, Tony went outside to work, and after cleaning up the kitchen, I sat down, and started stuffing envelopes.

John arrived on time, as usual, but this morning he showed up with Martha Stewart! I knew Martha was coming in this morning, and I couldn’t wait to go meet her, but the phone was ringing off of the wall, so it took me a while to get outside!

When I finally made it outside, I knew I wasn’t going back inside for a while, because the day was so beautiful—sunshine, no clouds, and sixty-five degrees—my kind of weather! When I arrived at Martha’s pen, the little beagle was still eating breakfast, so I decided to take Mama, our sweet, three-legged, Pit Bull, for a walk.

When I walked into Mama’s pen—she knew what was fixin’ to happen, and she couldn’t wait for me to put a leash on her. As soon as she and I had become one, we took off for our walk. Once outside the rescue ranch, we took a right, and headed west, on the caliche road.

Mama walked beside me, as we slowly descended the steep hill, down to Wallace Creek. When we arrived at the creek, Mama chose not to go swimming, instead she opted to sit on the bank beside me—watching the minnows, for fifteen minutes or so. After she had lost interest with the tiny fish, we went back to the road and headed westward, again. We climbed up another steep dirt road, which led us to a huge pasture, full of trees and wildlife.

We started walking north into the tall grassy meadow, but after walking about a hundred feet, Mama stopped dead in her tracks, and refused to walk any further with me! I thought her behavior was weird, because she has never done that on our walks, in the past.

The hair went up on the back of my neck, but I wasn’t sure if it was from the wind, or because something was wrong. I didn’t know what to do! Mama was too heavy for me to carry, and I wouldn’t tie her to a tree to go get help. I begged Mama to please come with me, one more time, but she refused to budge. Then suddenly, the thought of a mountain lion popped into my head! Now, I was scared.

I petted Mama on her back, to reassure her, and then I asked her to please walk back to the rescue ranch with me. Her ears went flat, she tried to take a step, but then pulled her leg back. She couldn’t do it—she was in pain!

Since, I hadn’t heard the scream of a mountain lion, I studied the situation, and came to the conclusion that Mama was in pain—due to arthritis! I felt horrible. I wondered how Tony, John, Ben or I hadn’t noticed her arthritic condition before. Poor girl. I felt terrible.

After apologizing to Mama for walking her arthritic body on a walk-about on the ranch, I figured the only thing left for me to do was to holler for Tony to help us, but because I was so far away from the rescue ranch, and the wind was blowing, I wasn’t sure he would hear me.

“Tony!” I yelled. “Tony!”

I could hear a few of our rescued dogs bark back, but that was all. “Tony!” I hollered as loud as I could. Then I heard more of our dogs bark back. “Tony!” All of the dogs began barking back at me. Then I heard Kermit’s engine crank up!

John had heard me, and immediately jumped into Kermit, our four-wheeler, and drove over to where Tony was working. “Tony!” John said, with excitement in his voice. “Nancy’s in trouble! I just heard her scream—Tony!”

Tony jumped into Kermit, and the two of them left the rescue ranch in search of me! I heard Kermit nearing, and then it headed off in another direction. A few minutes later, I could hear Kermit coming in our direction—and then their was silence! Tony had cut the engine off.

“Tony!” I yelled, hoping to give him direction to where we were at. Fortunately, it worked, because I heard Kermit’s engine start up, and within a minute—Tony and John had found us! We were rescued!

When the guys drove up, I could tell from the expressions on their faces, that they were glad to find me and Mama, but questioning why I had hollered, because we didn’t seem hurt or in danger.
“Are you okay, Nance?” Tony asked.

“I am fine,” I answered. “I hollered because Mama has arthritis! And she refused to walk any further! She was walking just fine until we got off of the road. Please take her back to the ranch with y’all. I will walk back, I need the exercise.”

Tony picked Mama up, put her between him and John, and off the threesome went.

When I arrived back at the ranch, I was glad to see Mama back in her pen—happily chewing on one of her bones. Then I walked down to the barn and found Tony and John. “I just saw Mama,” I said, to them. “She seems to be fine now, but I think we should take her to the vet to be checked for arthritis. What do y’all think?”

John and Tony looked at each other, and then they started laughing! “What’s so funny?” I asked.

“Nance, Mama doesn’t have arthritis—her feet were full of stickers!” Tony said. “That field that you walked Mama into is full of stickers right now, because of the freeze we just had. When we got back here, John and I pulled out—over a dozen stickers from her three paws. She’s fine now, and no, she doesn’t need to go see a vet.”

“Thank goodness,” I said. “I can’t believe it was stickers? I really thought she had arthritis. I promise, the next time I take a dog walking...”

“John and I are going to make you take a walkie-talkie—with you,” Tony said.

“And, bread crumbs, too!” John said, with a laugh.