the bigdumbHoosier Archive - 7.18.2002
Hellhound of the Bogus
About a week ago, my wife Corinne and I were driving home from the farm from whence this web site gets its name, and I saw what looked like some smoke coming out of the woods. She was driving, so I said, "honey, let's go back, I want to take a look at that"...we've been having some pyros setting fires, so it seemed wise.
We checked out the locale from which the smoke appeared to emanate, but no fire was to be seen. However, a long legged, fairly winsome bitch-hound-pup came out of the woods and began to follow the Jeep, 4 wheeling as we were in the soft sand.
The poor creature was, I must admit, pretty attractive. Nice brown patches over her eyes, pretty tall, and big feet indicating she had some growing to do. Corinne was, as I said, driving the Jeep, and this hound decided to follow.
Now this road, through the sand and black oaks, is a washboard affair. You can't drive too fast if you want to keep the fillings in your teeth. The vehicle shakes, and gets into a sort of spasm at some speed...you can drive real fast and it seems smooth until you lose control and end up wrapped around one of those trees. But with the entertainment of this hound following us, Corinne took it kind of slow, in 4WD.
After we'd gone about a half a mile she starts saying how the poor thing is all thin and looks lost and lonesome. I'm thinking, it looks kind of stupid, (not an unusual condition among beagles); but a bit tall for a beagle. Pretty soon she's got me feeling sorry for the poor lost thing, and thinking about how hot it is and how skinny this pup looks. So I say, "well, take it slow and we'll stop down by the Bogus and get it to drink some water".
Yes, this creek is called the Bogus, which ought to indicate something about this tale, but I didn't make any of it up. Anyway, this dog keeps trotting behind the Jeep, now for maybe 3/4 of a mile. It starts baying and Corinne says, 'why's it doing that?' I say, because it's a coon dog, and thats what coon dogs do. She doesn't find this a very satisfactory explanation but it seems sufficient to me.
So we finally get down the hill to the banks of the swampy Bogus. Now, I figure I'll just point to the water, and this hound will trot on down and get a drink of nice clear water. A bit swampy, true, but fine for a dog. But this hound is not interested in climbing over the bridge abutement through the stinging nettles and past the insects to get to a nice cool drink.
No matter how slowly, or loudly, I tell this hound how to get down to the water, she doesn't get the hint. She just looks at me with big baleful eyes.Finally, I give up and get a paper cup out of the Jeep (there's always a pretty good collection of such items in the back seat area) and decide I'll venture down to the water. I pick out a path and manage to get past the old washing machine and a couple of busted bottles more or less unscathed. With a full cup of water I start climbing back up, but as soon as I grab the bridge abutement post to pull on, I grab ahold of a paper wasp nest.
The paper wasps, while generally fairly tame as wasps go, didn't find this amusing and three or four immediately jumped on me and stung the &%#* out of my left hand and my left leg.While running from these wasps I handed the cup of (rather expensive) water to this dog, who seemed familiar with a few of the colorful local phrases I was then spouting. Well, I suppose these phrases are actually pretty widespread. At least as widespread as paper wasps.
Now, at this point, as I'm cursing, swatting, and generally stomping around, the hound starts getting really friendly with Corinne, licking her feet and such. So I say, well honey, I've got to admit, it's a fine looking specimen, for a hound (generally the stupidest, least desirable of dogs, in my opinion). So I say, "let's take it home, and tomorrow we'll take it to the shelter. It's cute enough that somebody will want it". At this point the hound is starting to look kind of nervous and standoffish for some reason.
So I open the back door of the truck. Now, I don't generally find much of interest in Japanese car adverts, but I have to say, I do agree with the idea that 'dogs love trucks'. There does seem to be, in general, some kind of primal affinity there.
But this dog just looked kind of nervously at the open door and walked away shyly. I though perhaps it didn't get the point. So I pointed at the open door, and just then, Corinne slammed the door on my right hand. So my left hand and left leg had been stung by wasps, and my right hand shut in a car door within ten minutes of this hound's appearance on the scene.
Of course my sweet, sensitive, nurturing wife is laughing her *$#* off at this point. I say; "that there's a hell hound if you ask me", and we get in the car and go. This time the dog didn't follow us, she seemed to be moving on, looking for another victim, perhaps
I haven't seen the hellhound of bogus since, but I know she's out there. Lurking.
