Some people, principally those who are childless, become very attached to their pets.  The pet takes the place of the child, and receives the love and attention that would have been lavished on the child.

Perhaps because there are so many children in the Kerns family, pets have never been a high priority.  Being a farm family, we've always had a dog and numerous cats; but cats and dogs are animals and belong outside just like cows, sheep and pigs.

That's not to say that these animals have never been in our home.  To the contrary, all of the above-named creatures have come through our house at one time or another.  Usually it's been to take a bath.

It's not that our animals are particularly dirty (although that's why animals aren't invited to take up residence).  It's because of the time of year that they choose to be born.  Most farm animals are born in the spring.  Often it's still winter.  Usually it's still cold.  It's a shock to a newborn to be ejected from a warm womb into a sub-freezing, sometimes sub-zero world.  And to arrive wet in that environment puts a cruel twist on the experience.

The result is often hypothermia.  Such babies, if found in time, can only be saved by getting them warmed back up as quickly as possible.  Hence the baths.

It's a pain to kneel beside the bathtub for close to an hour holding a calf's nose out of the water.  It gets to your knees, it gets to your back, and it gets to you heart.  But miracles are wrought that way.  We point to a 1300-pound blue roan cow and say, "Old Blue was in our house once."

Old Blue weighed 80 pounds then.  She was barely breathing.  Her eyes were white inside, like ice.  She couldn't even blink when you touched her eyeballs.  She was dead for all practical purposes, and we asked ourselves if the effort and mess was worth it.

She was submerged in the tub, all but her nostrils.  The eyes quickly thawed in the warm water, but they were still unseeing.  The breathing was still labored and irregular.  Her body was still, period.

After 10 or 20 minutes and four prayers, her little body began trembling.  She'd been too cold to shiver.  Now the shivers began in earnest.  This was a good sign.  For the first time we dared hope that she'd make it.

The shivering lasted another 20 minutes, when suddenly she gave a deep sigh, rolled in the tub, and commenced trying to get her feet under her.  It was time to get out.

The calf that had been dead less than an hour before, now had its head up and was alert.  Its pains were forgotten.  It had just two things on its mind.  One was to figure out how to use its legs, and the other was to find food.

First she had to be dried, which soaked several of Margie's good towels.  Then she was carried to the living room and placed in front of the fireplace.  While waiting for her damp hair to dry, she entertained the family by practicing standing.  She was all legs and awkwardness; but after a dozen pileups, she proudly stood with all four wobbly legs under her.

After a first meal of thawed cholostrum, which is kept frozen in the freezer for just such emergencies, the baby calf was returned to its grieving mother.  The last mama cow had known, she'd had a baby which wasn't getting up, and then the humans had come and snatched it away.  She despaired of ever seeing it again, when suddenly the humans appeared again and deposited a bright-looking baby in front of her.

It couldn't be hers, could it?  She started to run away, but doubt brought her back.  She approached the baby warily.  It was covered with human smells, but there was something else there.  She sniffed it again and again, head, body and tail.  Yes, there was no doubt about it, it was hers.  What happiness!  Her baby was back from the dead.  How quickly grief and trials can turn to joy.

Many calves, lambs and even a few baby pigs have gotten their start in life in our house.  Clip, our first family dog did, too, although she arrived warm and healthy.  Clip was half Yellow Labrador Retriever, and half something else.  She was white and long-haired.

Clip arrived late Christmas Eve in 1976.  With the excited kids finally in bed, it was safe for Margie's dad to bring Nathan's present.  The puppy was one of a litter born in early November.  She was barely seven weeks old, cute and cuddly.  A family had been saving her for me to pick up that night.

The pup was placed in a box next to 5-year-old Nathan's bed so that it would be the first thing he'd see when he awoke Christmas morning.  But Christmas morning, Nathan opened his eyes with one breath, and ran for the living room in the next.  In his excitement he leaped clear over the box and completely missed its contents.  He had to be told to go back and look by his bed.

The pup was as excited as the kids that Christmas morning.  It romped with Nathan, helped him open packages, and spent the day nipping him, puppy fashion.  Hence, he dubbed her Clip.

Clip's owner was in kindergarten at the time, so her intended partner was gone every morning.  I began taking her to the barn when I went to milk the cows.  I milked two, one of whom was Old Blue.  How she hated that pup!

Clip rode to the barn each morning in my coat pocket.  The smell of that pup drove Old Blue wild.  Clip was an enemy that would hurt her calf.  More than anything she wanted to destroy that pup.  At first she refused to put her head in the stanchion.  Then when she was finally caught, and Clip was let loose to roam, she stomped and thrashed about.

An uneasy truce was eventually worked out by the three participants.  But the real significance of the daily episodes was that Clip adopted me as her master.  For the next 14 years wherever I went on the farm, she went, too, preferring my company to everyone else's.

Clip was a good-natured dog.  She was gentle with the babies, and never got cross when they pulled at her or crawled over her.  Everyone was her friend.  She only barked to announce the arrival of a car.  She politely inspected each visitor and happily escorted them to the door.

A dog at a house you're visiting is something to keep an eye on.  Our first time visitors always gave Clip the once over before they alighted from their cars.  Seeing nothing but friendliness in her gentle eyes, they knew there was nothing to worry about.

Hunters stop every fall to ask permission to hunt.  Back then I generally felt that if they were responsible enough to ask permission, they deserved the right to hunt.

But one day several hunters pulled into the driveway in a pickup.  Our friendly Clipper met the pickup with raised hackles and fangs bared.  Only a fool would have stepped out.  Those men were no fools.  What they were, we didn't know.  But Clip did.  She couldn't tell us about them, but her opinion was very plain.  Those men were not to get out of that pickup!

They didn't.  They honked instead.  I went out to talk to them.  They asked permission to hunt like many before had done, but in this case, permission was denied.

We looked at Clip differently after that.  She belonged to us, but apparently we belonged to her, too.  Everyone felt safer about kids' excursions knowing that Clip was along.

One day I had some fencing to do on the wooded ridge above Grandpa's house.  Four-year-old Matthew wanted to go along.  I explained that he'd be up there a long time, but Matt insisted on going.  Matt played for a while, but quickly got bored.  He asked if he could walk down to Grandma's and Grandpa's.

It was a long hike for a four-year-old—nearly a mile down the ridge and through the fields to Grandpa's house.  We were high above the house, which was plainly visible from our vantage point.  I would be able to see Matt except for the time he'd be going down the ridge.  There was no particular danger, and Matt couldn't get lost, so permission was granted.

Matt confidently marched off down the hill.  Clip sat and watched intently as the little boy disappeared over a rise.  Without so much as a backward glance at me, the companion she'd never leave, Clip got up and trotted off after Matt.

Very shortly, right on schedule, I saw Matt leave the woods and enter the field below me heading straight for Grandpa's house.  Right beside him was his four-legged guardian angel.  As I worked I watched the two of them until they arrived safely at the house.

I ceased to worry, but marveled that Clip had left me.  I was grateful to her for doing so, but she'd never done that before.  Was she going to change allegiances and prefer someone else's company to mine?

The answer was not long in coming.  In a few minutes I looked up from my work to see a panting, happy Clipper arriving back at her post.  I was full of praise for the faithful dog that had taken it upon herself to escort the little boy safely to his destination; and she was happy, job done, to be back with her master where she belonged.

Clip was run over by vehicles four times in her life.  Once Grandpa ran over her as a pup and broke her leg.  The tractor's front wheel ran over her while I was feeding cattle one morning, but no damage was done.

When she was getting old, slow, and deaf she failed to get out of the way of a pickup loaded with a heavy load of firewood.  Both wheels went over her.  She was badly hurt, but recovered.  But she was never the same again.  From that time on she looked old and acted old.  There was no more bounce in her step.  She could no longer keep up with me or the kids, so she stayed at home and slept.

The end came one hot day as she lay in the shade of a car.  Always before she would have heard the car start and would have moved out of its way.  But she had become totally deaf and heard nothing this time.  The driver backed up without knowing Clip was there, and her life ended at the ripe old age of 14.

It was a sad day.  I dug a grave below the pond.  With the whole family gathered around, I cried as I laid my friend in it.  The kids erected a stone, and occasionally decorated the site with flowers thereafter.

A year before Clip's passing, Annie came home in my pocket.  Annie was a Yellow Lab, one of a litter of 12 belonging to some friends.  She was full of life, and a trial to Clip and to baby Ivy.

She was also a trial to the chickens.  She was a bird dog.  Her natural instincts were to be interested in birds above all else.  She had to be watched closely around the chickens, and received increasingly severe reprimands when she chased them.

Clip, her predecessor, had gone through this stage also, so it was hoped that Annie would soon learn to ignore the chickens like Clip did.  Clip's behavior-changing lesson came when she brought a dead chicken back to the yard.  Margie saw her, rushed out of the house, grabbed the chicken, and beat her with it.  She scratched Clip's nose with the chicken's claws, and thoroughly worked the whimpering, yelping puppy over with the dead body.  The lesson was effective.  Clip never again looked upon chickens as fair game.

Annie learned her lesson the hard way, too.  I took up a two-by-four to stop the boisterous pup from chasing chickens.  I misjudged the strength of my blow, and broke her leg.  I felt really badly, but Annie, too, never again looked at chickens.

People are disturbingly similar to these dogs.  Why do we have to learn our lessons the hard way?  You'd think we'd be smart enough to listen to the voice of experience from our elders.  Every mistake that could possibly be made by humankind has already been made.  Either the lessons aren't being passed on, or else someone's not listening.  Usually it's the latter.  Life becomes a choice between learning through obedience or learning through the things that we suffer.  The end result is the same, but one route is infinitely easier than the other.

If chickens weren't fair game, however, squirrels were.  Ground squirrels were very nearly the death of Annie.  Her favorite sport was to accompany whoever was moving the irrigation pipes on the North 40.  Squirrels were plentiful there, and she and the pipe mover worked together to catch hundreds of them.

The pipes were moved by hand.  Each joint was 30 feet long and 3 inches in diameter.  A small stream of water was left running out the end of the line.  This was to put weight in the pipe so that it wouldn't move and unhook at the previous union when a new joint was rammed in.

The stream of water coming from the end of the line quickly spread out and ran down squirrel holes.  The line could be bent several feet each way to direct water down promising holes.  As water cascaded down the holes, surprised squirrels popped to the surface for air, and they hoped, safety.  Instead they ran right into the jaws of their eager archenemy who quickly dispatched them.

Squirrel catching was easy for Annie when working with such a partner, but it was almost impossible by herself.  She never quit trying, though.  She made countless careful, silent stalks, lifting her foot into the air to take a step, motionlessly holding it airborne, and only putting it down again when the squirrel wasn't watching.  She hoped to get close enough to the unsuspecting squirrel to make a quick dash and catch it.  But the squirrel was never unsuspecting.  When it came time for the quick dash, the quicker squirrel was down its hole and gone.

Once in a while, though, a squirrel could be surprised foraging away from its hole.  These could sometimes be overhauled before they could reach safety.  A single-minded power charge was required to effect the capture, however.  It was this power charge that nearly killed her.

Annie and the three little boys were walking up the road when Annie charged off after a squirrel.  The squirrel had no time to reach its hole.  It headed for the open end of a six-inch aluminum pipe, and zipped in just an inch ahead of Annie's teeth.  Annie was sure she was going to get the squirrel, and slackened her speed not a bit.  Her head went right in the pipe after the squirrel, full force.  And there she stuck.

Annie thrashed and pulled.  The boys grabbed her and pulled.  It was a desperate situation.  The force of the impact had jammed her 6 1/2-inch head into the 6-inch pipe clear up to her shoulders.  There was no good way to brace themselves to hold the pipe still while others pulled her out.  A runner was dispatched to get help from the house.

But there was no time.  Annie couldn't breathe.  She fought and struggled, and the boys tugged and pulled.  And then Annie went limp.  She had run out of air.  As her body relaxed in death, the boys pulled, and out her head popped.  But it was too late.  Her eyes were closed.  She lay still, not breathing.

Seconds passed.  Long seconds.  Annie gasped.  More seconds passed.  Another gasp.  Then another and another.  Her eyes opened.  Now she was gulping in air.  Then she tried to stand, and swayed drunkenly.  Gradually her equilibrium returned as she fought her way back to consciousness.

It had been a close call, but not the only close call she'd have.

Another day Annie went hiking with the boys, their cousins, mother and aunt.  They walked the plank-covered flume that feeds the reservoir at the top of the ridge.

Annie and the boys, which included two named Danny, reached the head of the flume first.  The three ladies in the party were some distance behind.  Annie loved water and needed no invitation to take a swim on a hot summer day.  She headed straight into the creek that fed the flume.

The flume was four-feet in diameter, and sucked in large quantities of water.  The suction was too great for Annie.  Into the flume she went.

"Annie fell in the flume!" the boys yelled.

The ladies sprang into action, their maternal instincts instantly raised to fever pitch.  Their ears had heard not "Annie," but "Danny."  Two of them were mothers of nine-year-old Dannys in the group.  The other was the youngish grandmother of one.

They sprinted up the flume and tore planks from the covered walkway.  Reaching into the rushing water they snagged the drowning body.

Who was more relieved?  The rescued dog, the dog's relieved master, or the ladies who pulled not their boy, but a dog from the flume?