Childress Saves

Childress, my dog, is part Border Collie, part Australian Shepherd, part some kind of hound and part some kind of setter. He's the smartest dog I've ever known. Today when I got home from Trader Joe's, he was sitting just outside the gate. You may recall this is the gate I fixed, so it shuts and latches, but it's a ranch style gate - Childress can step easily between the beams. We don't have to worry about him running off. He's not that kind of guy.

Childress is sitting just outside the gate and when I start to open it, he gets up and walks between me and the gate. He herds me away from the gate. I tell him to knock it off, because I've got ice cream and it takes me twenty minutes to get out of town to the house, but he won't let me open that gate. Selma Rae's not home.

I had to turn the tables on Childress and try to herd him away from the gate but he basically said, "nothing doing!" he barked at me! He barked at me like Lassie in an urgent situation. So I asked him if Timmy was trapped in the well and he starts away from the gate along the fence, but keeps looking back at me and barking. I set down the groceries - by now the ice cream isn't evoking my sense of responsibility as much as Childress is. I follow him. Now I'm getting curious. Childress sees I'm following and picks up his pace and leads me to the seven redwoods about 500 yards down the fence trail.

There's a fawn. It's alone. It's actually pretty well hidden in the grass, but there it is.

So I sat down out of the way to watch a while and Childress sat beside me. We hid so the mother would feel comfortable approaching. We sat til twilight, til dusk and that fawn just waited. When dark came she started to bleat. It was so mournful, so uncertain. I heard Selma Rae's car coming up the drive and saw the lights. Childress sat watch and I went to get Selma Rae - and a flashlight from the car.

The three of us sat in our hiding place til at least 9:30 and the fawn finally stopped crying and seemed to go to sleep. No mama. Coyotes were yipping in the distance. Childress pretty much tip toed over to that fawn and lay down beside it. And the fawn let him. So Selma Rae and I made our decision.

And that is why right now there is a fawn sleeping soundly on a bed of grass here in the den. And that is why Childress is spending the night beside her, and why I'm too riveted to go to bed. It is why Selma Rae made a baby bottle out of a glove and a water bottle, warmed up some milk, and why the fawn drank it down like a champ. This is also why the ice cream melted.

At dawn, we track down Fawn's mother.