As you can see, Spot took it on himself to be the boy’s bodyguard dog! Where the boys were, Spot was, and that was a relief for me! Michael was so little out in that tall grass in the front year, but Spot was guarding him!
Spots love of riding in the truck though created a dilemma for him sometimes. Rather than stay at home with the boys his desire to ride in that truck pulled him to jump in and ride to wherever Morris was going that day. If the work was at the Johnston Home place, 7 miles away, Morris would leave for the day to work down there and Spot was right with him. So you can see Spot liked to be with the boys but his love for working with Morris and riding in that truck pulled him away
If Morris was plowing or disking, Spot was right with him. Once Morris was plowing up some grassland down by the timber that had never been plowed before and with every furrow he made, he dug up rat tunnels and the rats were running wild. Spot would grab one up in his mouth and shake it until it died. However they soon began coming out in such numbers that he would just grab one and throw it over his shoulder and go on to the next one. He was so tired he could hardly walk and climb into the truck that evening to come home!
Morris was headed to Pittsburg one day for something and the boys and I went with him. He had the stock rack on the truck for I guess he and John had taken just one or two head of cattle to the stockyards and he hadn’t taken it off.
He told Spot to “Stay” and guard the house as we pulled out and headed for town. For some reason we had to stop at the bank in Minden and Spot appeared on the sidewalk in front of the truck! The tail gate had been down on the truck as it would not go up with the stock rack on and Spot had jumped on and ridden that three miles into Minden standing on that narrow gate! I don’t remember Morris slowing down for some of the bumps in the road coming into Minden either.
Morris just put Spot inside the stock rack and he traveled to town with us. Thank goodness he was quiet as we parked in town to do our shopping.
We had traded our car for the pickup truck as it was needed more for hauling things on the Ranch than a car would, and the boys were small enough so we four could ride easily in it then, but Ken even before he was two years old did NOT like that truck. He thought that day that we were going to town to get our car back and he was so disappointed when we didn’t get the car that day that he cried about it!
It was Spots delight when Morris would have John’s big truck stacked tall with hay bails. He would climb to the top and ride up front with his nose sticking out in the wind as far as he could stretch his neck!
Spot had long hair that we sheared off in summer to keep him from getting it just full of cockleburs. He would sometimes come in with the burs so thick in the hair under his tummy and on his tail that he would yelp as he lay down. That was when we got the hair clippers out and trimmed him. What a difference it made! Wish we had gotten some pictures of him then.
After a few years he gave up his job of guarding the boys and was for the rest of his life strictly Morris’s dog until the day he just lay down and died. He was about 14 years old when he passed away.
Spot was not a house dog. He slept in the back porch or in the shed where we had piled hay for him to burry under when it got cold. And winters was getting closer now.
