Atomic Dog

Momma and our Cocker Spaniel Red Dog were inseperable until they were yanked apart in my parent’s divorce and BD fought harder for the dog than he fought for anything else. When the dog is the most prized asset on the list to be split you know that the dog was spoilt. Beyond spoilt. And the canine spoiling reached its apex in the car.

Every trip started the same. Momma would head for the suburban, open the door and ask Red if he wanted to go. To Red Dog this was a stupid question, because he always wanted to go. Once in the car Red Dog would jump into her lap and assume his preferred place – his head out the window as we traveled the quiet county road leaving a trail of slobber down the side of the car.

Driving with a dog on your lap is not an easy thing and it’s even harder when you have a dog like Red Dog who basically liked to hang all the way out the window with sometimes nothing more than one leg inside the vehicle. Add one inattentive driver to the mix and it was a perfect recipe for disaster.

There were many memorable moments with Momma and Red Dog in the car. The time that she wasn’t paying attention in the Hardee’s drive through and the dog crawled into the restaurant in search of the curly fries he loved so much or the when Red Dog choked himself by rolling the window up on his neck and Momma didn’t notice. But one time stands out more than the others.

It was a hot and clear Sunday and we were headed back to the farm from the lake in the RV. Momma at the wheel with seven or eight kids running around the back of the 18-foot motorhome. As usual Red Dog was at the wheel, Her trusty co-pilot as she drove with one foot on the dash – I like to give her a pass on this one because of her post-polio syndrome.

As we cruised past the wheat fields Momma was singing along to the radio and honking the horn along to the beat. We just passed over the big hill beside the dam when the “incident” as it became to be known happened. Sitting in the passenger seat I had the best vantage point to see the action. And boy was there action.

We hit our cruising speed along the two way blacktop road and Momma hit the horn and scared a covey of quail. Now someone who was paying attention would have immediately grabbed Red Dog's collar and pulled him inside, but not Momma, she kept going down the road as Red Dog launched himself off of her lap like a ballistic missile and out the window in pursuit of the quail.

As Red Dog was swan diving out the window, kids started screaming and Momma looks up to realize that the dog is no longer on her lap and hits the breaks…hard. My best friend Leslie ended up face planting in the hall as her brother was thrown into the kitchen table.

As we came to a stop and I jumped out to see if Red Dog was still alive Momma turns around and says calmly, “Hope he’s still alive, can’t imagine what he was thinking.”

Don’t worry Red Dog was fine but he did get busted after I had to chase him across 180 acres of wheat pasture to catch him and my parents’ fight over the limping dog was another sign of the break that was about to happen in my childhood.