Burger's Tale: One Dog's Journey!

By Arthur C. Kuch

Burger was one of four pups born in the bayous of Louisiana to Lilly, a Catahoula Bitch. The unfortunate death of Lilly changed Burger's life. He traveled to New Orleans and adopted by a Tulane college student, after a car hit him. She and her friends took care of Burger. Hurricane Katrina was the reason for Burger's travel around the country. He finally ended up in Italy. He now is a citizen of Italy. He lives in a converted monastery near the Lake Como Resort of Italy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 13, 2008
• ISBN: 9780595605347

Arthur C. Kuch

Personally know the dog and people in the story. I am the grandfather of the main human character in the book. I live in Lititz, Pa., in the middle of the Dutch country. During my life I worked as a Human Resources Manager, Production Supervisor, Aircraft Mechanic and Served in the United States Air Force. I am 69 years old.

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CHAPTER 1

IN THE BEGINNING!

I’m a dog, but not just any dog; I am a Catahoula mix. My Mother was a purebred Catahoula and my father, a Labrador retriever. The Catahoula is a little known breed outside of the Gulf States. The Spanish brought my ancestors here in the fifteen hundreds. Due to Hurricane Katrina, Many of my brothers and sisters have fallen victims of euthanizing, due to the inability of shelters to find homes for them. I am one of the lucky ones.

I have a story to tell, and my story starts in the bayous of Louisiana. The first thing I can remember was the warm feeling on my body of my mother’s breath, as she removed the wet and sticky substance from my face, head and the rest of my body. I couldn’t see what was going on around me, as I couldn’t open my eyes. Try as I might, I couldn’t open them. I could feel movement on my back, as if someone were trying to push me with their little feet. I tried to turn around to find out what was going on, but had trouble controlling my feet, legs and body. I finally turned over on my belly, but my legs stuck out to the side, like the legs on a turtle. I had to use my legs like flippers to move over to the body that was pushing against me. Upon reaching the other squirming body, I was surprised to find two other bodies; smelling one at a time, I determined that I had a brother and a sister. Mother was making a strange sound and breathing hard, giving a moan and pushing her hind legs against the side of the stall, then relaxing and turning to clean up the new arrival. I could tell by the smell that I had another brother, so that made two brothers and a sister. Mother moved around and started pushing us to her belly, one at a time. All of a sudden, I was hungry, as my nose touched something that was warm, wet and had a sweet smell. I tasted it; the liquid was sweet and really tasted good. As I continued to drink my meal, I became aware that one of my brothers was trying to move into my place. I pushed him away with my shoulder and continued to eat. As the days went by, there was always someone trying to push me from my eating-place, but I would stand my ground and continue to eat until I was full.

As the weeks went by, my two brothers, sister and I became stronger. We would climb over one another, pushing and shoving at mealtime, trying to get the best spot to eat. We would try to move around to explore our surroundings, but Mother was always there and would keep us from getting too far away. She would gently pick us up with her mouth and take us back to our eating and sleeping area. Mother would leave us every now and then, and then she would come back and lie down next to us, and start to push us toward her belly. After the first week, she no longer had to push us to her belly. When Mother would enter the barn, we would sense her presence and make a mad rush for her, even though we couldn’t see her and our legs were not strong enough to carry us. We would stumble, falling on one another and running into each other. She would smell each of us, turn around a couple of times and lie down. Each of us would take our place to feed; most of the time, there would be a lot of pushing, growling and snapping, before we all settled down to eat.

One morning, when I awoke, stretching and feeling around for Mother to get something to eat, something strange happened. I could see a bright light through my right eye. Looking around the barn, I could see straw on the floor and the barn door that Mother would come and go out. The barn was made of large boards, and light was showing through cracks that were in the side of the barn. Taking my paws and rubbing my eyes, the left eye suddenly popped open. Looking around the barn, everything was new to me; I could see my brothers and my sister. Being able to see what was going on around me was so much different from just being able to smell and hear what was going on. For the first time, I could actual see my mother lying there in front of me as I looked at her. I could see her coat had many colors. Her back and part of her face were black, brown, tan and white, with darker spots on her back and sides; her belly was white. As I lay there, admiring my mother, she lifted her head and looked straight at me with her light-blue eyes; they appeared to be clear as glass. I went over to her and started to lick her face and tell her how beautiful she was. We spent a couple of minutes together, when I noticed a light shining through at the bottom of the door, where the board had broken off. I wanted to know what it was and where it was coming from, as I started for the door and the light, Mother came after me. She picked me up by the back of my neck with her mouth and took me back to the others, letting me know that now was not the time to go exploring.

As I looked around the barn, I looked at my brothers and sister. My sister liked just like my mother, except she had brown eyes. My one brother’s back was brown with black spots and a lighter brown on his belly, legs and face. He also had brown eyes. My other brother was lying behind the first brother and I could only see part of his head. I walked around to the other side, to see what he looked like. I was surprised to see he looked the same as my other bother. What do I look like and what color am I? I turned my head to look at myself. From what I could see, I was about the same as my brothers, except a lighter brown and more black on my back. .

The following day, a man came from the house, bringing a bucket and some dishes to the barn. He placed the dishes on the barn floor a couple of feet from each other; there were four dishes. He picked up the bucket and poured some of the contents into each dish, taking us one at a time and putting our noses into the dishes and telling us that each of us would have our own dish and that we were old enough to start eating out of the dishes. The liquid that the man had put in the dishes almost tasted like the milk that we got from Mother. He also told us that he knew how protective we Catahoula were of our food and that the separate dishes should stop any fights over food before they started. He also said that he would be out to feed us twice a day: once in the morning, before he went to work in the swamp, and once in the evening, after returning from the swamp, before he ate his supper. The man then picked up each of us one at a time, looking us over. As he turned to leave, he said that we were a fine-looking litter of three boys and a girl. Then, looking at Mother, he said, Lilly, you have a fine litter.

The following day, the man showed up just before daylight, with the food, just as he said he would. The man had woken us up as he was putting our food in the dishes. I lifted my head and watched, as he filled the last dish and turned to Mother and said that he was off to the swamp and would be back before supper. The dishes of food smelled good, but Mother was warm and I was comfortable, and just as I was starting to feed from Mother, she stood up and walked across the stall to the other side of the dishes. She stood there and watched, as we were wondering what was going on. We all started heading toward Mother, and as we approached, she turned and walked to the other side of the dishes again. She walked over to her bowl and started to eat, and as we started to move to where Mother was, she turned and gave a low growl and we froze in our tracks. Why was she doing this?

Later, as we bedded down for the night, Mother let us feed again. The next day, Mother was not there when the man brought our food. We were hungry, we couldn’t found Mother, and so we went to our dishes and ate our food. After eating, our stomachs were full, making us sleepy. Sometime during our nap, Mother returned and lay with us for a while. Mother got up and walked to the door of the barn, pushing it open with her nose and looking at us, and then she gave a bark and a whining sound and disappeared through the open door. We looked at one another and then collectively headed for the door. As we reached the door, we stopped and cautiously looked outside. Mother was standing outside, waiting for us to come through the door. As we exited the door, she turned and trotted a few steps and turned toward us again. She barked at us, reassuring us that it was okay to follow her to the middle of the yard. Once in the yard, she lay down on her belly. We ran up to her, running, jumping and trying to bark like her, and all that came out was a little yelp.

The last few weeks were the best that you could ever imagine. Mother would take us out into the yard every day, and then she would play with us, letting us climb on her back, chasing her tail, as she would wag it and pull on her ears. When she had enough of our playing, she would give a low growl to let us know that playtime was over.

The following day when Mother took us out, she didn’t lay down for us to play with her. She ran a short distance, stop and then run again, letting us catch up with her, then she would run a short distance, doing this repeated, until we were tired and started to lie down. She would take us back to the barn. As the days passed, we became bigger and stronger; Mother had a hard time getting away from us. As the days passed, Mother started taking us farther away from the barn. We now had no trouble getting around, and we were eating from our food dishes and drinking water from a dishwashing basin that the man had put next to our food dishes and kept filled with clean water ...

CHAPTER 2

THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW!

The playing and fun we had with Mother now turned to learning about the swamp and the dangers that we would encounter in our daily lives. She started by telling us about the poisonous snakes that lived in and around the swamp. The first was the cottonmouth rattler, which Mother said was poisonous and the meanest snake she had ever seen. The snake had a reputation for its bad temper, and you didn’t have to do anything to make it strike at you, just being in the same area was enough of a justification for it to bite you. The bite could kill you if you didn’t get treatment quickly. The cottonmouth is a water snake and lives mainly in the swamps. At times, the cottonmouth would leave the swamp and go to hunt rodents in the high weeds surrounding the swamp. There were times that the snake would go to the barn to catch and eat the rats that would come to the barn to find food. Other times, they would bask on logs and piles of stones on the pier and muddy spots next to the swamp. Mother said that we always had to watch where we were walking.

The next snake Mother told us about was the copperhead. It was the color of a new penny, with dark lines separating the copper-colored spots, roughly shaped like diamonds, which ran from the back of its head to its tail. Mother said that she heard people say that the copperhead had a smell like cucumbers, but that she had never gotten close enough to one to smell anything. She told us that the copperhead was also poisonous and the bite could kill us. Mother said that the copperhead bite could cause many other problems, even if we survived the bite. She told us that the copperhead would sun on old logs, sandy ground, rock piles or any place they could find prey to catch and eat.

The third snake that Mother told us about was a small snake, brightly colored with black and red bands separated by bands of yellow. The red and black bands never touch one another; a yellow band on the coral snake usually separates them. This pattern runs the length of its body. The head is black, followed by a yellow band, and then a red band, and then a yellow band; the pattern repeats a number of times. The coral snake is one of the most poisonous snakes in Louisiana. The coral snake bites and grinds its short fangs in an effort to break the skin, so the poison can enter your bloodstream. Any bite that breaks the skin could be fatal. The coral snake lives in the ground or in piles of dead leaves. A good way to identify a coral snake is the old saying of black and yellow can kill a fella.

Mother then told us about the alligator. The alligator lives in freshwater swamps, marshes, rivers, ponds and any freshwater wetlands. She told us that the gator, as she called the alligator, cruises through the swamp waters behind the house. They would swim with just their nose and eyes above the water and sometimes just with their eyes sticking out of the water. That way they could sneak up on their prey, which were fish and any size animal the gator thought it could handle. The gator could eat just about anything that it could catch or found lying around dead, including other alligators. Alligators are attracted to a barking dog or any other commotion, such as splashing in the water, which means an animal in distress. Mother told us that drinking from the swamp or other bodies of water was very dangerous, as an alligator might be just below the surface, waiting for an animal to come to the edge of the water to get a drink. The alligator would then spring from the water, grabbing the prey, dragging it into deeper water to drown it. If the prey is too big to eat in one meal, they will stash the prey some place, then let it rot. After the body has decayed for a few days, the alligator takes the prey in its jaws and starts twisting its body around violently to tear the carcass of the dead prey into bite-size pieces. The people in the swamp called this maneuver the death roll.

Mother told us there were many other animals in the swamp; one was the wild pig that roamed around the swamp and nearby woods. She told us that a fully-grown pig was nothing to fool with, as they could become very mean, and some had long tusks and could injure us or even kill us. She told us about the white tailed deer that lived in the swamp. The other animals she told us about were raccoons, muskrats, possums, nutria, wild cats and the cougars. She told us about other reptiles besides the poisonous snakes she told us about earlier; there were snapping turtles, map turtles, frogs and lizards. She told us to look at the trees that grew in the swamp, mostly cypress, and that their roots were standing up out of the water. She told us that the gray stuff hanging from the cypress trees, was Spanish moss, was not part of the tree, but was something that just grew on the tree. Mother said there were many other creatures in the swamp, that we would learn about eventually, and that there seemed to be something new every day.

The man from the house would come to the barn every morning and evening to feed us. He never missed a day and was never late. This particular day, the man was earlier than he normally was. He was very quiet as he poured our food into the four dishes and Mother’s bowl and then added fresh water to the basin. Having completed his task, the man headed toward the door, stopping and looking back, saying, Lilly, take care of your litter. I will be back early today, and the weather doesn’t look good. I didn’t understand what he was talking about regarding the weather; it was not raining and the wind was not blowing. Just then, Mother started to get up; she gave a big yawn, stretched her legs and shook her head. Mother then stood up and walked over to my brothers and sister, who were still sleeping; she then nudged my two brothers and sister with her nose to wake them up, so they could eat their food. I hurried up and finished mine, so I could go to the barn door and see what the man did after he left the barn. I went to the barn door, starting to push the door with my nose as Mother does, and I turned to see where Mother was; she was watching me, making no effort to stop me. I exited the barn door and lay down a few feet from the door, not wanting to get too far away from the barn or Mother.

As I waited for the man to come out of the house, I noticed many strange sounds coming from the swamp. Some of the sounds I recognized, but most I had never heard before; it was scary. Just as I was about to go back into the barn, the man came out of the house. He was carrying a burlap bag, lunch pail and a flashlight. He turned on the flashlight as he reached the bottom of the steps, shining the light all around the ground at the bottom of the step. After he was sure that nothing was around the steps, the man stepped on the ground. As he continued towards the side of the house, he swept the ground with the flashlight. He moved to the side of the house, where I couldn’t see him anymore. Then he reappeared carrying what looked like a bunch of cages made of chicken wire. Taking the cages to the pier with the burlap bag and lunch pail, he laid everything out on the pier. He shined the flashlight from one end of the pier to the other, and then he shined the light into the boat. He then took a stick from the pier and tapped the sides and bottom of the inside of the boat, while shining the light inside.

Having checked the boat for any hidden or unwanted visitors, the man turned his attention to the ropes that held the boat to the pier. The boat was lower than the pier, and I couldn’t see what kind of boat it was. Mother had told us that the man in the house called it a John Boat and that a John Boat was a boat with a flat bottom, good for use in the swamps. The flat bottom lets the boat navigate in very shallow water without catching on submerged logs, rocks and sandbars. The man picked up the cage traps and lowered them into the boat, then moved the lunch pail and burlap bags to the edge of the pier. Untying the rope that was holding the front of the boat, the man lowered himself into the boat. As he was moving to the back of the boat, the man grabbed the burlap bags and lunch pail from the pier. He removed the last rope holding the boat and then the man disappeared below the top of the pier.

The next thing I heard was the sound of the boat’s engine starting, piercing the morning air with a rumbling sound that echoed throughout the swamp. The man revved the engine a few times, and then put it in gear. I could hear the engine start to speed up, and as the boat left the pier, a light appeared just above the pier and headed out into the channel that led to the swamp. As the boat made a turn to the right to enter the channel, I could see a green light on the front of the boat. I could hear the engine of the boat even after it disappeared around the turn into the channel. I listened until the sound of the engine faded into the sounds of the morning.

Lying by the door, I suddenly became aware of the sounds of morning; my body shook as I tried to imagine what kinds of creatures were making the strange sounds. Abruptly getting up and turning to enter the barn, I noticed that the sky to the east, the light of day, was starting to show over the horizon, but the light was not white like it should be. It was red and eerie, and I had never seen anything like it before.

Upon entering the barn, Mother lifted her head and looked at me, asking if I had my curiosity satisfied. I went over to Mother and lay down next to her, telling her about everything that I had seen and heard. Mother listened without saying a word. I asked her why the man left early today and why the sky was red. Mother told me that a red sky in the morning was a sign that we were going to have a storm and that is why the man had left early to check his traps. The man was wise about the weather in the swamp. Mother told me that the man was a crayfish trapper and would check his traps and collect as many crayfish as he could before the weather got bad and that the swamp was a dangerous place in a storm.

Mother went on to tell how the man would pull the traps from the water and empty them into the burlap bags he had taken with him. After checking all the traps, he would return home, go through the bag of crayfish, remove any that were dying or dead and then put the bag of crayfish into the back of his pickup truck. He would drive to the market in New Orleans, and the people in the market would buy the crayfish to sell to the restaurants and stores. The live crayfish then placed in rapid boiling water with spices and vegetables, like onion, carrots, celery, red potatoes and ears of sweet corn cut in half. The heat reduced and allowed to simmer for about five to seven minutes, or until the tail meat, was no longer transparent. After the cooking of the crayfish, you can serve them in the broth, or the crayfish, removed from the potatoes and corn and placed on a plate or paper spread out on a table.

Eating crayfish was a little messy, but nobody worried about it; they used many napkins. Most people would eat the tails with hot sauce or some type of dip. Grasping the head and tail, between the thumbs and forefingers, giving them a twist to separate the head and body from the tail. Mother said that most Louisiana people would suck the juice from the head of the crayfish and to some people this is a delicacy. Mother said that people up North use crayfish as bait for fishing, instead of eating them. Mother said crayfish would only live for about two days in a refrigerator, so there was a need to catch them every day to meet the demand, but they are also farm grown.

Abruptly, the barn shook as lightning struck nearby, and we all jumped at the sudden arrival of the storm. The sound of a hard and steady rain pelting the side of the barn made us all a little shaky. The wind could be heard blowing things around outside the barn; something was banging against the side. Mother looked at the four of us all huddled together and shaking. She summoned the four of us to her side, and we went to her without hesitation. The five of us lay together as the lightning flashed and lit up the inside of the barn, and thunder shook the building; it seemed as though the storm was never going to end. After about half an hour, the sound of the thunder moved off into the distance, and flashes from the lightning were no longer lighting up the inside of the barn. The rain was falling at a slower rate; the wind had started to die down . Mother said that she hoped the man from the house was okay, because the swamp was dangerous at anytime, but especially during a storm. Things could happen, like causing old trees to blow over, which could trap a person, they could drown or a gator could get to them. The wind would blow down limbs, and a broken limb falling into a boat could cause it to sink, then the man would have to walk in the swamp water with gators, snakes and sinkholes.

I asked my Mother how she knew so much about the swamp and what the man did in the swamp. She told us that when she was younger, the man would take her with him when he would go into the swamp to tend his traps. He would let her ride in the front of the boat, and from that point, she would