Bob Dog

 

The dog my mother Wenonah remembered from her childhood was “Bob Dog.” The Dog part of the name was necessary because Wenonah’s younger brother was also named Bob. 

Bob Dog was a bull dog. The picture below doesn’t look much like a bull dog to me, but it’s the one Wenonah identified. She was getting older and her eyesight was failing when she told me, but I’ll show the picture anyway since it’s the only one I have.         

                                                                   Bob Dog 

Wenonah’s older brother, Willie, originally bought two bull dogs. The other was named Queen, but Queen didn’t work out.  After Willie brought the dogs home he was in the yard talking to a friend of his, and Queen charged them. Before anyone could react, Bob Dog ran in front of Queen and knocked her away. So Willie got rid of Queen, and Bob Dog instantly won the trust and gratitude of the family. 

After that, Bob Dog became part of the family. He was playmate to Wenonah’s younger brother Tom and her younger sister Oteka. Grandmother liked to work on her quilts upstairs in Willie’s bedroom over the porch. Wenonah’s older sister Kaliteyo would sit with her and help thread her needles. As they worked, they would watch the children play, and later, Kaliteyo would entertain the family with stories of their antics. Bob Dog patiently followed Teker and Tom around the yard, even as they dressed him in old shirts and shorts, harnessed him to their wagon, and tied tin cans to his tail. 

Wenonah was more in charge of Bob Dog’s practical necessities, like food, which he liked, and baths, which he didn’t. Mamma would say, “Jim, Bob Dog needs a bath,” and he knew what she meant. “Sometimes I could catch him,” Wenonah said, “but if I didn’t, he would leave and be gone for a week.” Wenonah said that he went to “West Town,” the “colored” part of town. “He had a girl friend over there,” she said. 

Bob dog was big and strong, but he did have one weakness, and that was thunderstorms. Wenonah said that as soon as he heard the first clap of thunder he would run into Mamma’s room and hide under her bed. That usually worked fine, along with a few comforting pats from whomever was nearby, but one evening when the clouds started gathering, Bob Dog found himself alone, trapped in the dining room. Mamma had taken the children to the movies. Mamma’s dining room was separated from the rest of the house, and from Mamma’s bedroom, by sliding doors. They were huge, and heavy, more of a partition than doors, and they were covered by heavy green velvet curtains. They were pretty, with a fleur de lis pattern embroidered along the bottom. Unable to get through the door to Mamma’s room, Bob Dog attacked those curtains, tearing them with his teeth and with his claws. By the time the family got home from the movies, they were in shreds. 

Bob Dog also possessed that supernatural connection to the family members that some dogs seem to have. When Wenonah was at OU, and would ride the bus home for a visit, Bob Dog always met her as she walked home. Somehow he knew she was coming. Oteka said he met her too. 

Bob Dog met with an untimely end. With Wenonah, Bob, and Tom away at school, and Kaliteyo and Oteka married, he spent more and more time away from home. One day he came home cut in several places and bleeding. It was his last trip to West Town. Bob Dog died in Mamma’s arms.