The dog of another resident in the village likes to visit me while her owner is tending her shop in Nederland. Dixie is eleven years old and has spent ten of those years with three legs. Her owner tells me she was caught in a trap when she was one and spent seven days on the mountain to the north of the village worrying her leg out of the trap, which apparently was considered to be a more humane model because it didn't have teeth. There was snow on the ground, which she apparently ate to keep hydrated, and she eventually made her way home, but her right hind leg had to be amputated. Dixie is an Australian cattle dog and I'm told that when she was young, even with three legs, the snowplow driver clocked her at 27 mph. But the wear and tear on her remaining limbs has left her more content to sleep in the warmth of my cabin...and although I've been admonished not to feed her, she does enjoy her all-day sucker. I figure a dog who's still allowed to run loose after she's lost a leg in a trap is being exposed to much more harm than what she might suffer from this practice.
If I have sauteed meat in one of my iron skillets the night before, Dixie gets all those wonderful drippings that I'd love to make gravy with, but never do. She can spend thirty or forty minutes licking the skillet and only quits, I think, when her tongue gets sore. Later, after her nap on the bunk, where I've lifted her and turned the electric blanket to low, she'll return, finding continued enjoyment in the corners of what appears to be a perfectly clean skillet. Yes, yes, I wash it afterward...with anti-bacterial soap...even though I know iron skillet purists would frown on that.
So, if you come to my house and I cook anything in one of my iron skillets for your dining pleasure, you'll be eating from the dog's dish! I hope you enjoy it as much as Dixie. What's your favorite all-day sucker? Teddee
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