Pie and the Rattler

Pie grew quickly and became a beautiful dog.  Her hair was long, thick and shiny, and her eyes always sparkled.  To this day, my family has a saying.  When someone has a sparkling personality, and their eyes twinkle and shine, we say they have “Pie eyes”, like Cutie Pie.

I loved her and she and my sister’s dog, Bandit, went everywhere with my family.  Most of the time she was happy and playful, and she hardly ever barked.  Sometimes she would run to a spot in the grass, or on the road, and start barking a strange, deep and hoarse bark, only stopping if we dragged her away.  One day we finally understood what that bark meant.

My sister is a few years older than me, and she often took odd jobs throughout our neighborhood.  Sometimes she would babysit, but she also took care of people’s gardens, houses, and animals, while they were gone.

One day she’d run across the pasture and climbed the fence to the next door neighbors.  She had a temporary job taking care of their horses, dogs and cats, and watering their lawn and garden while they were out of town.  She finished awhile later, and jumped back over the ence to come home.  She was jogging across the pasture, when pie suddenly jumped in front of her.  She stood about five feet away, squared off with my sister, refusing to let her pass.  Sonja tried to walk around Pie, but the dog shuffled to the side like the best basketball player in the world, blocking her path.  After 2 or 3 tries, my sister had had enough, and exclaimed, “Pie! What is wrong with you?!” Just then, she looked over the dog’s shoulder.  On the path between my sister and the gate, the path that Pie was blocking, lay a huge rattlesnake.  He was coiled in a long thick rope, with his head swaying back and forth, and his tail poised in the air, rattling a warning that she hadn’t heard before that moment.  Her eyes widened, and she took off in a dead run in the other direction, around to the other gate and the house.  She ran in shouting, “Snake! Snake!” and my dad grabbed his shovel on the way out the door.  He rounded the corner of the pasture and came to a screeching halt, turning back to shout to me “J.W., get my gun!”  He took one look at that snake and decided that shovel just wasn’t big enough!  He picked up his revolver, and shot the snake in the head, then used the shovel to make sure it wasn’t a danger anymore. 

The snake measured out to be over 6 feet long.  My sister never heard of saw the rattler before Pie stopped her from walking right into it.  From that day on, anytime we heard that bark, we knew to listen.

Pie also used that bark as a boyfriend warning system.  Anytime she growled or used the snake bark on a boy, we knew that there was something wrong with him, and Sonja knew not to date him!