When we lived in Keller, Texas one of the things I enjoyed most was driving down to Old Fort Worth to watch the cattle drive. Fort Worth is the only city in the world with its own herd of longhorns. Twice a day, at 11:30 and 4:00, they have a cattle drive. There are 4 or 5 cowboys driving the cattle up 2 blocks of Exposition Avenue just to honor the city’s tradition of being Cow Town USA. They use 15 head of longhorns of various colors and horn configurations to make up their trail herd.We’ve talked to the cowboys many times and found that half of them work for the Fort Worth Parks Department and the other half are police officers.

Over in Dallas there is a big concourse known as Pioneer Plaza. It features a static cattle drive with 15 sculptured longhorns and 2 cowboys on horseback. The figures are 25% larger than life. and show amazing detail. The herd is winding around a small knoll and down a slope and fording a creek.

There is a large, bronze plaque in the sidewalk that shows the trail brands and gives the name of the trail bosses or ranches they come from.

Dave Thomas
July 23, 2014

Alex the Dog was rescued or saved by Pat. One day she heard a dog crying outside our door. She opened the door and found this half-starved puppy, 2 or 3 months old, crying for help. She touched him and immediately had fleas jumping all over her hands. She took the pup into the kitchen and found some left-over’s in the fridge and fed him. Since he was so miserable from the fleas, she put him up in the sink and gave him a bath with dish washing soap. Then, she put the dog in the garage, gathered up the kids, and went to the store and bought dog food and flea soap. A can of dog food and another bath and the little guy was stabilized to the point where he could settle down and take a nap.

Over the next couple of days, Pat talked to the neighbors about the dog and determined that he must belong to the man at the end of the block. His house was set back from the street quite a ways and in his back yard he was raising fighting dogs. The current litter was half Pit Bull and half Rhodesian Ridgeback. I don’t know what the rest of them looked like but the one that escaped and came to us looked more like a Rhodesian Ridgeback or a German Shepherd than a Pit Bull. He grew up to be a fair-sized dog and had a handsome face, unlike most Pit Bulls.

After 3 or 4 days the man that owned the dog showed up at our door. I was at work so Pat told me what happened. The guy demanded his dog back. Pat asked him why and pointed out that he didn’t care of the dog and it was covered with fleas and half starved. The guy said he had to keep them hungry so they will fight. Pat told him that this dog wasn’t going to fight. Again, the guy demands the return of his dog. By this time, Pat was sick of him and says “You are not getting your dog back and if you don’t get out of here I’m going to call the cops and tell them what you are doing with those dogs down there!” The guy takes off and Alex became part of the family. He protected the kids, protected our home, and was the smartest dog we ever had. Once in a while he was too smart for his own good and got himself in trouble.

In these animal stories I’ve tried to come up with at least one anecdote to illustrate that the animal showed a certain amount of reasoning or developed an idea and acted on it. Alex was a “thinking” dog. He figured out all kinds of things like how to climb over a 6 foot chain-link fence. He looked like a man climbing a ladder and when he got to the top he took a couple of seconds to get his balance and then simply jumped off.

We had moved to the outskirts of El Cajon. It was a quiet suburban area and people let their dogs roam free. Alex had a bed in the garage and that’s where we put his bowls for food and water. We usually left the back door of the garage open so he could go in and out and get a drink or take a nap. One Saturday, Pat and I were going to go get groceries so we gathered up the three kids and closed up the house. Alex was in his bed in the garage so we left the back door open but gave him a lecture about taking a nap and staying out of the street. He had been chastised for this many times and he knew what the words meant.

We had an outing and picked up the groceries we needed and headed for home. As we made a right turn onto our street, we looked down toward our house which was the fourth one down the block, and saw Alex out in the middle of the street. He looked up and saw our car and high-tailed it for the house. He rounded the corner of the garage and disappeared into the back yard. I pulled up into the driveway and got out and opened the garage door so we could carry the groceries straight into the kitchen. The first thing we saw was Alex in his bed. He stood up and stretched like he was getting up from a nap and came toward us all bright-eyed and with his tongue hanging out and what looked like a big grin on his face. We weren’t fooled for a minute! Pat lit into him with “You lying dog! You weren’t taking a nap…you were out in the street, weren’t you?” Alex got kind of a sheepish look on his face, hung his head, and proceeded to slink back into his bed. BUSTED!

Unfortunately, Alex never learned his lesson and refused to stay out of the street. One day he took up with the neighbor’s female dog and when they went running on the highway, both were struck and killed.

Dave Thomas
August 31, 2014

We actually got mixed up with some exotic animals a couple of times when we lived in Texas. We lived in Keller and about 70 miles south is the city of Glen Rose. Just 4 or 5 miles outside of Glen Rose are the Fossil Rim Wildlife Center. Fossil Rim is large and has several miles of dirt roads that allow you to give yourself a self-guided tour to see the animals. The countryside is of low, rolling hills and when you are out in the middle of the property you can easily imagine that you are out on safari when you encounter the African animals that you have heard of and seen in books all your life. You can buy a bag of feed at the gift store (8 bucks and you are allowed 1 bag per vehicle).

There are many types of animals in the Wildlife Center. To name a few, there are ostriches, emus, zebra, giraffes, wildebeests, many species of antelope and deer. In separate pens are black rhinos and white rhinos. There is a fenced area for cheetahs and the Center’s breeding program has produced 180 cubs in about 30 years. There is also a herd of American bison.

The different types of deer and antelope, along with the the ostriches and zebra roam free and they all have their favorite feeding and loafing places within the park. You can encounter and feed one group and then drive a short way and find another group. The zebras and some of the deer will come up to the car and eat out of your hand. Some will get close but you have to toss the feed on the ground.

The zebras get pretty pushy. Actually, the zebras are thugs, have no manners, and don’t display any reticence at all when it comes to eating. The first time we went to Fossil Rim, we had our grand-daughter, Michelle, with us. Shell was driving as we went through and fed the animals. A couple of times, she had to duck as the zebras rammed their heads in the window in an effort to get to the food.

The second time we went to Fossil Rim, Pat’s Aunt Mable was with us. Her daughter Kathy and son-in-law, Richard from Wichita, had come to Dallas to visit friends and had dropped Mable in Keller to stay with us for two days. We thought Mable might enjoy something out of the ordinary so took her to Fossil Rim.

Mable had never really been around animals much so she wasn’t prepared for their aggressiveness when being fed and wasn’t sure how to do it. We told her over and over to extend her hand with the palm up and flat and to have the food lying in the middle of her palm. She didn’t listen and picked up the food with her fingers and offered it to a zebra. Naturally, the zebra nipped her fingers, causing her to yelp and jerk her arm back inside the car. Pat and I got a good laugh out of it because we knew she wasn’t hurt. We continued with our tour and Mable did ok with the feeding. Later, on the way home, we asked her what she thought about the experience. She said, “Well, if anyone asks me if anything interesting happened when I went to Texas I’ll tell them that I got bit by a zebra but other than that, not much.”

Dave Thomas
November 1, 2014

For a short time (1 ½ days) I had a pet porcupine. I was 13, going on 14, when I spent the summer of 1950 in Safford, Arizona with my Grandpa, George Sicks. I had never seen a porcupine and all I knew about them is that when they got mad or scared they threw their quills at you and you ended up looking like a pin cushion. I figured them to be pretty mean animals.

Grandpa sold Allis-Chalmers farm equipment there in eastern Arizona. He spent a lot of time on the road calling on the farmers and ranchers in the area. One day, he said he would be going south to make some calls. I couldn’t go with him because he had hooked me up with a job on one of the big farms in the area. When Grandpa got home that night he told me about his trip. To get to the area where he wanted to make calls he went south out of Safford and after a few miles arrived at the Pinaleno Mountains. As the elevation increased he got up into the pine forest. As he went over the crest of a hill, he almost ran over a porcupine in the road. It was standing beside the body of another porcupine that had been hit by a car or truck.

Grandpa went about his business but when he returned in late afternoon the porcupine was still beside the body as if grieving over the loss of its companion. They may have been involved in a mating ritual or, as we learned later, this may have been a mother and baby as the babies stay with their mothers until they are about 6 months old. Grandpa pulled over, got out of his car, and walked back to the porcupine. It didn’t move. Being afraid that the animal would eventually be hit by a car, Grandpa picked it up and put it in his car and headed for home.

When he got to the house, Grandpa told me what had happened. He had a big cardboard box and some chicken wire and we used them to fashion a pen. We got a bowl of water and some vegetables from the house, put them in the pen, and we were ready for our guest.

Grandpa was good with animals and believed that touching was the best way to establish a bond and begin communicating with them. As he got the porcupine out of the car he began showing me how to stroke its back as he spoke quietly to it.

The quills normally lay flat and needless to say, you should always stroke “with the grain” unless you want to deal with quills sticking out of your hand. We put it in the pen and I spent the rest of the evening sitting beside it and talking to it and stroking it. I didn’t get any reaction at all until I started rubbing the bridge of its nose. Then, it started leaning into it a little. I knew the animal was unhappy and scared so it was gratifying to get any kind of response.

I didn’t have to work the next day so I just hung out with the porcupine. It didn’t eat or drink or move around in the pen. Besides the other trauma in its life it couldn’t get any peace now because some kid was checking on it every five minutes. I talked to Grandpa about the situation when he got home that afternoon. He said that he had been worried about the safety of the porcupine but shouldn’t have interfered. He said he should have left it to Mother Nature to take care of business and we would have to make it right.

The next morning, Grandpa put the porcupine in the car and said he would leave it where he had found it. That evening, he told me that the remains of the other porcupine were still where he had seen them last. He moved the body several yards off the road and then got the other porcupine from the car and placed it beside its former companion. We were both sorry that we couldn’t have done more.

For the record, porcupines don’t throw their quills. They are passive little animals but when forced to defend themselves, turn their back to the aggressor and “bristle”, causing their quills to stand up straight. If the adversary persists and gets too close they whack it with their tail. That’s when the pain comes in.

This is a sad memory but I am grateful for the things I learned.

Dave Thomas
October 21, 2014