One Stray Dog? Part 1 by Ronald Mackay
Even by 1976, the 20th century hadn’t made much claim on the acreage and farmers of Glengarry County. Houses of white chinked logs or weathered shiplap sat at a discreet distance from the road, thistle-infested fields on either side of each farm lane. Beyond farmhouses, woodsheds and barns missing boards, a forest of noble green hardwoods stretched to the back of each property. The “bush”, as the locals called their woods, now furnished only firewood. Aged men had given up logging, given up on construction, they’d even given up on repairs and renovation.
A local winter-time trapper and summer-time oil tanker driver would set his trapline through these farms. In spring, reluctant farmers would check fences and then release a steer from the barn to enjoy the first flush of fresh grass. The trapper would stretch his beaver and racoon pelts to dry. Puttering tractors would drag two-furrow ploughs through stony ground, heralding preparations for a mixed crop of oats and peas to serve as winter feed. Woodsheds buzzed. Men laid aside work to drink beer in the shade and tell stories of things they’d dreamt of but never done.
I was one of the few who’d arrived “from away” and settled into the Township in recent years. Most city folks seeking a country place, found Glengarry too far for a daily commute to Ottawa or Montreal.
Nothing much, it seemed, had ever changed here or was likely to. But I give you fair warning -- my predictions have a way of being wrong!
When a stray dog began turning up at farmhouse doors, it became the topic conversation. My neighbours, Donald A and Alex MacDonald were my source of information about lost dogs and everything else that happened or didn’t happen, in Glengarry County.
“Stray turned up last night.” The brothers arrived when their beer ran out. “Big as a pony!” Donald A held his hand hip high. “Put a saddle on the beast? He’d gallop you to Cornwall.”
“Fierce, an’all! Alex scowled.
“Bite you?” I asked.
“Tried!” He paused. “But Donald A, he was faster. One kick and off it went!”
“No collar!” Donald A added soberly.
Our Township had a bylaw. Owners must register their dogs with Yvette, our Canine Control Officer. They must buy a tag, and attach it to the obligatory collar. “Responsible ownership!” Yvette explained.
Too busy to worry about strays, I offered my neighbours a beer and continued to remove the old points from my Oliver plough. Two months it had taken me to find new points that fit. Now I had to cultivate my front fields before the ground dried hard.
That evening, as I sat on my porch, ploughing vanished from my mind. A grey animal, head hanging, tongue lolling, flanks sweating and matted, was loping down my fencerow. Coat rough grey, it stood close to a meter at the shoulder.
Alex was right. Could saddle this one! Been chasing game! I guessed. Worn out! Wolfhound maybe? No! Head too pointed.
I whistled. The beast stopped. I beckoned. It changed course and loped towards me.
I was right! A Scottish deerhound! No collar!
As it bent to drink from the pail I offered, my proud rooster strutted round the corner of the barn. A Plymouth Rock in all its green and red and black glory, he was my pride and joy and so too of my hens. Chantecler, I called him.
Chantecler stood still for a moment, ruffled his feathers and crowed. In a flash he was crushed between the deerhound’s jaws, a coloured rag of lifeless fluff.
My laying hens’ joy! My feathered beauty! Furious, I lunged at the hound. It slipped by me, raced down the fencerow and into the bush. Helpless, I watched Chantecler’s body twitch its last while my traumatised hens lamented: Will we ever see another like Chantecler?
“Scottish deerhound?” Yvette, nodded. French Canadian, Yvette was our diligent Canine Control Officer. “Nope! None registered!”
She stressed the word. “You mean…” I began.
“Got it in one, you! Somebody hasn’t obeyed the law. Saved paying for a tag.” Her voice was angry. “Month ago, I stopped a blond on Main, me. Big sighthound on a rope leash she had. No collar! No tag!
‘You a visitor?’ I say, polite, me. Always polite. But she answered rude, ‘Why?’ Like rude! ‘Why?’ Ah, but me, I don’t give up, me! ‘I’m the Control Officer, me!’ I tell dat blond. You come register dat hound, You hear?”
I looked at Yvette’s aging face and her dyed blond hair. I smiled at the thought how a new, and perhaps natural blond in the township, might annoy. Especially if she were unwilling to accept Yvette’s civic authority.
“Took me a while, me. Didn’t want to talk, her! But I learned, me, dat she moved into the Township while back. Wouldn’t tell me where. Said. ‘I have no time for minor matters’. Minor matters my ass! Uppity blond bitch! More’n a month ago dat was. An’ has she come to register?”
Yvette’s scowl told me the uppity blond had not!
“You’re not de first to report a stray,” Yvette continued. But I’ll get her, me! Blond bitch’ll pay, you’ll see!”
Yvette’s Francophone English was determined. Wouldn’t stand being screwed around by a newbie! Specially by an uppity bitch with real blond hair!
My loss of Chantecler still wrankled, so I decided to do some investigating myself. Deerhounds were bred for coursing red deer and mountain hares in Scotland. Why would an uppity blond have bought a hundred acres in Glengarry yet be reluctant to register her hound?
I drove to Graham’s, the local real estate agent. “Sure, I remember a blond with a hound, Ron. Bought the old Wilson place. Hundred acres. Land abandoned, but the house OK. Said her dog needed space.” He whistled. “How much space does one friggin’ dog need?”
The old Wilson place was a classic 19th century two-story, red brick-built farmhouse on a lesser-used concession road. The kind of house built a generation after the first settlers had made the land productive. They could leave the log cabin for a house comfortable for a large family.
I opened the gate, drove in, closed the gate behind me, and advanced towards the house. Another gate! This is unusual! I looked around and saw that the owner had installed a new fence with a second gate in front of the trees that shaded the house.
I got out of my truck and saw why the new fence had been built. Eight pairs of piercing eyes stared at me. Four great, grey, eerily silent Scottish deerhounds dared me to enter.
I didn’t accept the dare! Nor did I have to wait long! In blue jeans, cheap shirt and a sleeveless leather waistcoat, a grim-faced woman with a gleam in her eyes as sharp as that of the deerhounds, strode towards me. Her waistcoat was army-surplus favoured in Scotland by delivery men who carried sacks of coal on their backs. Deferential, the deerhounds parted to let her through, then flanked her, two on each side. The woman’s fists were clenched as if to strike.
And strike she did.
Not with fists, but with her tongue. “You are an unwelcome visitor. No! You are an illegal trespasser!”
Wow! She’s the Alpha bitch in this pack! Dominant! Unfriendly! Articulate!
“I want you gone!” Her accent was Toronto, her tone hostile.
“One of your dogs turned up at my farm.”
“You know it was mine?” Pause. “You do not!”
Seeks advantage by answering her own questions, I noted.
“Scottish deerhound.” I nodded towards her pack.
“There are others!” She gestured to the world at large.
This is a woman whose behaviour and appearance makes a man think carefully. Very carefully!
“It could not have been mine. No! I know it was not mine!”
Not just a mistress of dogs, I noted, – also a master of intimidation!
“I believe it was yours.” I enunciated my words clearly.
“Are you deaf? I told you it was not!” Anger rising.
Slowly, I raised a finger. I pointed to the first, to the second, to the third, and finally to the fourth of the glaring hounds. “The stray that visited me wore no collar.”
“Ontario has many dogs without collars.” Her bark was Doberman like.
“Not in this Township.”
“You are mistaken! Your claim is unfounded!” She crossed her arms signalling that the matter was resolved. At least to her satisfaction.
I’ve lost my Chantecler. My hens are in mourning and won’t lay. I’m being given a rhetorical thrashing. Are you going to let a newbie from the city, intimidate you?
“We have a bylaw,” I held my voice calm. “In Glengarry, dog owners must register with our Control Officer. Must buy a tag and attach it to the dog’s collar. Residents obey bylaws in our Township. No exceptions.” I was borrowing her rhetorical tricks.
She paused, unused to being thwarted. I noted her narrow, intelligent face tanned from sun and wind, loose blond hair and eyes the colour of forget-me-nots. From those eyes poured a red-hot river of hate. It scalded. I stopped myself from recoiling.
“My dog stays here. My dog never leaves my property.”
Her use of the singular sounded intentional.
“You must leave. Now! My domain is private. Your presence violates. Ontario has a bylaw against trespassing!”
For a second I looked at that irate blond in the army-surplus waistcoat, surrounded by four panting Scottish deerhounds. Something else is going on here! But I nodded,
“G’day!” closing the conversation. For now! I reversed my truck down her lane, opened the gate, closed it behind me, and drove to Maxville.
I need time to think about such aggression!
If this Valkyrie has recently arrived, if she owns one or more Scottish deerhounds, if she’s adamant about disobeying the animal control bylaw that Yvette’s responsible for enforcing, if her dogs wear no collars, if they’re running wild, there will, without doubt, be interesting – very interesting -- times ahead!
That was the conclusion I drew after a single cup of coffee. But a lingering question nagged. Why might the behaviour and the appearance of an egotistical warrior goddess from Toronto bear such a resemblance to the hounds she’s chosen to possess?
The Valkyrie and her single Scottish Deerhound
