Years ago, in New Orleans, I worked at a veterinary hospital located in close proximity to a scap metal company I'll call Delta Scrap, and I became doctor to a succession of junkyard dogs. I doubt any of my patients from Delta Scrap had ever seen a veterinarian before, but like Little Orphan Annie, they found Daddy Warbucks when they became residents of Delta Scrap.
I never met the owner of that junkyard; the dogs were brought in by employees, often in a big, expensive car. The instructions were always the same: "Give him the works, and send the bill to Delta Scrap."
The "works" included a complete overhaul from ears to anal sacs. After the dog was made more aesthetically pleasing with a bath and dip, I administered vaccinations and other needed medical treatment. The dog brought in with a dirty piece of rope or rusty chain left with a new, shiny collar and leash.
The junkyard dogs I knew had a pedigree of sorts, but their only papers were the ones on the bottom of the cage while they were visiting the veterinary hospital. Still, their hybrid vigor must have made them survivors.
For some reason, there never seemed to be more than one dog residing at Delta at the same time. Did other dogs respect his territory until the present resident decided it was time to move on? Did the junkyard dog, used to fighting for the bones in life, present a side of his personality that earned him a reputation to his own kind? Did he protect his kingdom, in this case Delta Scrap, from all intruders, both human and animal. I don't know.
I do know that the junkyard dogs I worked with were the best of patients. They loved the attention and presented the most mild-mannered personality to those ministering to them. I found another irony in life's assumptions: we should all be as mean as a junkyard dog and as generous as his anonymous benefactor.
Junkyard Dogs was first published in the Sentinel in 1983. I used a version of this story in Understanding and Training Your Dog or Puppy as an example of the ancestral type of dog (discussed more extensively in the book). There is a theory that the dog, if not selected and bred with specific objectives of form and function in mind, will revert to a generic type of dog, called a pariah, meaning "outcast." Sounds like the junkyard dog to me.
The above story refers to my experiences in the early 1970s. Has the junkyard dog changed? Has a so-called purebred aggresssive type dog replaced that more benign (to humans) common dog? If so, my assessment of the junkyard dog would no longer be true. |
