OUR DOG COLLIE
January 8, 2008
In the Hector and Mina Wittwer Bunker family there are 4 girls and 4 boys. I do not remember us having pets as children think of them today. Our pets were the farm animals. We had horses, both for riding and for work, milk cows and beef cattle. Father liked to have beef cattle that he could run out on the range. We also had pigs and chickens. Some of the chickens were for meat and some for eggs. We didn’t need other pets because all of these animals were our pets and to us on the farm or ranch they spelled work. We were always working with them or caring for them.
My father had a dog-named Collie. He was a dog that was a best friend because he did so much to help. Father had a cattle ranch out on the meadow valley Wash. He would always take his dog because the dog would help him round up the cattle. Sometimes at night he would stay out on the range using the saddle blankets to sleep on. One night as he was asleep a rattlesnake (very poisonous) came crawling toward father. Collie saw the snake and killed it. Father said he always felt safe when he had Collie with him.
I was 6 yrs old when we were all in a wagon traveling from the ranch to our home in Bunkerville. It was a long ride in a wagon. We lived out on a ranch 54 miles from Bunkerville, our main home. Riding horses was our common mode of travel, unless the family were all going. Then we would ride in a wagon. We saw a coyote going up a near by hill while riding in the wagon and father said to Collie, “go get him”. Collie caught up to the coyote before it reached the top of the hill and fought a moment and then the coyote was dead. He seemed to know just how to kill his prey. While we were in Bunkerville one day, mother had taken some food from our table for Collie to eat and our little neighbor boy came over to play and started to take some of the dog’s food. Collie must have done something to cause the little neighbor boy to run home crying because the next day the little boy’s father killed Collie. That was very hard for my father to take, he was very angry to think anyone would kill his best friend, the dog Collie, and said he would sue his neighbor but mother influenced father to take no such action. She said it is much better to lose a dog than create an enemy to deal with the rest of our lives, especially a neighbor just across the street from us. We have maintained good relationship to this day.
MAKING MY HORSE GO FAST
My brother Merrill and I, on an occasion when we were young, riding our horses. I was 5 years old and couldn’t get my horse to go fast enough to keep up with him. So I got off the horse and got a willow to make my horse go faster. I had to climb upon a fence to get back on my horse, but as soon as I got on his back my horse started on a gallop. I had never galloped before and found that it was a much smother ride than to trot which was all that I had done before. From that time on I was not afraid to gallop on my horse. In fact it was soon that I was riding as fast as I could get the horse to go. Experience does build confidence.
BEING AFRAID
Most of the time when my brother and I rode horses, it was bare back. Our horses were tame so all we needed was a bridle to guide them. When horses were not available, we walked. I was driving our milk cows from pasture to our home to be milked one evening when I was walking and I heard a weird sound coming from out in the river. It was getting louder and louder. As it was coming toward me my imagination cause me to think some horrible beast was coming after me. I ran and hid in a swamp that had some tall tulies and said a prayer. When that weird noise got close enough for me to know what it was, I found that it was only a boy making the weird sound. He was bringing the horses from water. I was about ten years old and had not conquered my fears of some of the imaginary monsters that could get me. Fear is a terrible thing for a young person to deal with. Like many young children, I had been told that a bear or a boogie-man could get me. This was especially a problem for me when it was dark. Yes, I had been told such terrible things and it took time for me to realize that I was believing in imaginary beasts harming me. That didn’t stop me from having to make trips in the dark. Imagine yourself being very young and having to go after water to cistern or out to a toilet at night when it is dark and both of them were a good distant from the house. I would do all right until I was almost to the house and then I couldn’t get in fast enough because of some imaginary beast. Please don’t create imaginary fears.
Love, Ferren Bunker