BLACKFEET DOG WITH MANY NAMES

From H-Amerindian, an academic aggregator of Native American news:

“Blackfeet Reservation Facing Cultural Dilemma Over Animal Control,” FRBB
News. February 14, 2010.
http://www.kfbb.com/news/local/84355487.html

“With an abundance of dogs roaming the streets each day, the city of Browning is facing a cultural dilemma over animal control on the reservation. The Blackfeet people have a deep love for their dogs that goes back many years, but the current living conditions of the animals on the reservation is causing concern. Once the protector of the camp, the Blackfeet Nation dog once carried the burdens of the people, guarded their camps and were allowed to roam free, but now the dogs are living in a modern day society. The reservation is looking to take a new approach to animal this year, while keeping the cultural beliefs intact at the same time. Darrell Kipp, Director of the Piegan Institute, is helping new mayor Lockley Bremner determine what changes need to be made. He says, ‘We're talking about a time when there were no streets, no technology. Today it's a different situation. We have to use modern day approaches to be friends with the dog.’ Today, many stray dogs roam the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, some limping, others so hungry they are forced to dig through the trash for food. New mayor Lockley Bremner says, ‘We've become immune to the atrocities that the animals face here in Browning. I'm not innocent, you know, I've neglected it myself.’ Bremner has only been mayor of Browning since January, but he says the lack of animal control has been neglected for far too long. Its something Office Wayne Higgins sees firsthand everyday during his patrols…”

(I think this Lockley Bremner is the son of the Lockley Bremner in the first class I taught in Browning in 1961. That would mean it was his grandfather, Robert Bremner, who hired me to teach since he was on the school board then.)

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Last night I found a good place to sleep with a couple of other dogs under a house trailer. The skirting had come loose enough for us to squeeze in there and we were right next to the hot water pipes. I hope they don’t find that place and fix it, but spring is coming. We’re through the worst. I can smell it on the wind.

In the really old days we’d have been busy but hungry this time of year, working with The People. But in the cowboy days, like even fifty years ago, we’d have had to lay low for a while, because it used to be that the cops would shoot every dog that was loose. The calves were coming and some of us dogs would kill them.

I guess you never really get rid of the wolf in some dogs. Some of us are pretty big and tough -- strange dogs don’t go into their part of Browning. But in the smaller towns closer to the Rocky Mountains those big tough dogs keep the bears and cougars out of the street. Cougars eat poodles, you know. (Some of us think that’s not entirely a bad thing!)

In those days there was an old woman named Eula Sherburne, whose husband was an important businessman and who was the daughter of the agent named Churchill. (No relation to Winston, I think.) She didn’t own a dog but she would hide one she liked on her sun porch. It was “McGraw,” who was no poodle. He was a St. Bernard and he DID kill calves, though no one with a gun ever caught him. We thought it was hilarious because she was just a little lady, but she was tough and made McGraw do what she said. It was for his own good. Even people did what she said.

The thing is, Blackfeet dogs are not really pets -- most of us. We’re like an interwoven tribe. Like, I belong to what they call an “extended” family, so I don’t just stay in one family’s yard because they might not come home at night. If they don’t, I go over to the auntie’s house or if they’re gone, too, like at basketball tournament time, there’s a ranch in the country where someone has to stay in order to feed the cows. They’ll put out food for me. Otherwise, I just rustle. I’m really good at rustling. I don’t need anyone to open a can for me. But I would be really upset to be tied or fenced. How could I rustle?

I don’t mind being on the lean side so long as I have the wind in my ears. But what I love most is being out and about with my buddies. I mean, next to my human family, the best thing in the world is being with my other dogs. On a spring afternoon, dozing up against a sunstruck wall where it’s warm and keeping one eye on things, I couldn’t be happier. It’s more than just happy -- hard to explain. Peaceful. In harmony. Sometimes the town street people come along and sit against the wall with us, talking or even singing. It’s a good sound. They might have food in their pockets.

Granted, it’s not much fun to be clipped by a car, even killed. But we have a lot of endurance and we either heal or we don’t. That way the weak ones get weeded out, which is the way it’s always worked on the prairie.

I’m the last of my mom’s pups. The family took her to one of those veterinarian marathons where they tied her tubes. She fussed over me longer than she would have otherwise. I miss her now. Not quite sure where she went. In fact, there aren’t as many dogs around as there used to be.

This college kid who belonged to one of our families made a movie about us. You could watch it at:
www.reznetnews.org/multimedia/video/rez-dogs-5530 I’m in it but I won’t tell you which one I am because a dog has to guard his privacy. I won’t tell you my name either, because I have a dozen names. Some of them are in Blackfeet and you wouldn’t be able to pronounce them anyway.

I know change is coming. I hate change. I want everything to stay the old way. I can’t help it. I’m just a dog. At least the mountains stay the same.