Mud Flap

When Harry was young, every dog we had was bigger than he was. I realize now, this must have presented an impossible situation for him. In the country our dogs live chain free and loose out of doors. Harry was “hounded” the minute he walked out of the house, and as his mother, yours truly, I never quite understood that this could be a problem for him.


Mud Flap was our first dog. We’d just moved to Minnesota from Chicago. She was a four month old blue heeler; a very popular breed in these here parts, what with all the cows and cold weather. Blue heelers are skilled herders by nature. I watched her once move a group of Herefords into a tight knot and away from us when we were trying to feed them carrots over the fence. All most dogs would manage to do is upset and disarray and I’ve seen that happen with dogs too, but not with Mud Flap. She was short legged and compact, not weighing more than 50 pounds as an adult. At the time Harry was about three years old and maybe weighed more or less, nearly the same, but with less strength and less mass. Mud Flap would stand on two legs, press Harry up against the garage wall, give him a smooch and take whatever toy he had, which she did regularly. I remember dressing Harry to go outside. I would bundle him in his sweatshirt and windbreaker with a hood, and then on his signal, like a nurse handing the doctor scalpels on TV shows, I gave him his toys. He would have a toy under each arm and one or two in his hand. I’d open the door and out he went. Sometimes, the minute he was out the door I would hear milk curdling screams, and there would be the dog and Harry locked in a death grip on a toy. Harry was a screamer so I tended to ignore it, or ask him to lower his voice. Like talk about under reacting to something. The dog had a major chew fetish which he applied to all of Harry’s toys and some of our other things as well. So I discovered all the attributes and qualities of various types of tape from electrical, to hockey tape, to duct tape, in order to resuscitate Harry’s favorite play things, being that they were mostly plastic. Other stuff, like my leather gloves never survived. Ufdah, as they say in these here parts, the things we tolerate for a “family member”.

Mud Flap came to a very unfortunate end, but it wasn’t until a few days after the dog was gone, and I was preparing Harry for play outside, that I realized the true nature of their relationship. I had Harry bundled in his sweatshirt and windbreaker with a hood per usual, and on his signal, I began handing him his toys to tuck under each arm. I gave him the dog phone pull toy gift from my dad, (red electrical tape very cleverly wrapped around chewed sections of the phone handset), the dump truck under the next arm (duck tape around the joystick lever for operating the shovel), and then his shovel (black electrical tape all over). I could feel him stiffen with resolve as he faced the door and solemnly nod to me to let him outside. He was ready. And then I realized why the posture. “Harry, Mud Flap is dead.” Harry’s shoulders relaxed. His face visibly lightened. He loosened his hold on his toys. “Oh!” He had this sweetly pitched little three year old voice and a sing song inflection. “Mud Flap’s dead.” And that was it. He went outside. We had been going through this ritual for an entire season and it never dawned on me, till that moment, that I had been sending Harry out to battle everyday. I wonder if he’ll need therapy when he gets older. (The reason I say this is because I am afraid this isn’t the only thing I need to confess.)