Beau the Blue Dog

He started as a wiry little puppy with a stubby tail. He was a beautiful blue merle with black spots and a brownish face. At a very early age he learned to understand what I said. He tried to follow me through a gate; I told him not to come in. He started obediently to walk back to the barn.

"Don't go away," I said, "Just wait for me."

So he did. He turned around and came back, and sat by the gate till I was finished.

He was tough. He would take on opossums and snakes, moles, voles, and shrews, raccoons, repairmen, and foxes. Yet he had a softer side.

By the ducks was a scrap pile. In the scrap pile were some melon rinds. Beau used to steal them and chew on them.

One day a beautiful female chihuahua came out of the house. She pranced in her fenced yard, looking about and sniffing the wind. Beau came right up to the fence, melon rind in his mouth.

I watched closely. A blue heeler is so much larger than a chihuahua, and he might hurt her even through the fence, I thought.

He dropped the rind and pushed it. He pushed and pushed till it started to slide under the fence. He didn't stop till it was on her side.

The little chihuahua picked up the melon rind and trotted off with it, head held high in the air, looking for all the world like it was a treasured prize. Beau had given her a gift.