ANIMAL STORIES RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES (ALMOST)!!

     DEAR FRIENDS, ENJOY THE FOLLOWING ARTICLES FROM OLD NEWSPAPERS.  PERHAPS YOU WILL RECALL FONDLY IN ONE OR MORE OF THESE STORIES A FRIEND OR RELATIVE.  I MYSELF HAVE EXPERIENCED SEVERAL RECOLLECTIONS OF DAYS PAST IN THE STORY OF THE MOST UNFORTUNATE ROCKY, AND ISN'T IT OBVIOUS THAT BENNY LEARNED HIS PECULIAR PRANK FROM SOME YOUNG MISCREANTS ON A HALLOWEEN NIGHT LONG AGO?

Dickie Happy Even If Dog Can't Explain

PLATTEVILLE, July 26, 1946

    Whatever bond of companionship existed between Richard "Dickie" Young, son of Mrs. N. C. Young, Platteville, and his dog, Trixie, just before Trixie was hit by a car a week ago and wet-eyed Dickie took the limp form to a ravine to be buried, was nothing compar­ed to that bond today.

    Dickie can’t explain it; his mother can't ex­plain it, and Trixie, who was last seen a week ago lying at the bottom of the ra­vine in a gunny sack, is powerless to explain it.

DICKIE CRIES

    Last week Trixie was run over by a car. Dickie found him lying unconscious on the parkway.  Dickie gathered up the limp form of his constant pal and, tears running down his face, took it into the kitchen where he laid Trixie on the floor.  "We did everything we could to revive him," Mrs. Young said, "but our efforts were useless.  We felt so badly about it.  Dickie cried so hard and I guess I cried too."

    Dickie finally put the body of his dog into a gunny sack, loaded it on his coaster wagon, and moved off down the street to "bury" his pet.    

     HE PRAYED       |

    His mother’s promise to get him another dog failed to end Dickie's grief for Trixie.  He prayed that Trixie would come back.  One week to the day after Trix­ie "died," the dog returned.  He climbed into Dickie's lap, put his paws on the boy's shoulder and licked Dickie's face.  Trixie never explained how it happened.

BENNY, THE SMART CAT, WILL RING LANCASTER DOORBELLS NO MORE

By Mrs. Davis Crichton   -   LANCASTER, January 5, 1942

     Benny will ring no more doorbells, and the family of Dr. J. H. Fowler will get more sleep, but the family mourns any­way.  If Benny's trick of ringing the door bell, picked up all by himself had been tried on any other than a doctor's family it would not have been half as effective.  But when a general practitioner's doorbell rings in a small city, it gets answered, no matter what the hour.

      Learning to ring the old fash­ioned doorbell was tantamount to having his own latch key for Ben­ny.  He took to staying out until all hours, even 2 and 3 a. m., and ringing the bell when, he was good and ready to call it a night.

    But Benny was run over and killed by a bicycle rider not long ago, and everybody mourned his passing. “He was probably too smart for this world, though,” was the general    comment.

MAD DOG AT LANCASTER Wisconsin – June 3, 1853

    We are told that several head of Mr. A. Calder’s stock were bitten by a Mad Dog, last week, near Pigeon Diggings in Lancaster.  The dog was killed afterwards.  It is believed that one of those dangerous canines was seen in Lancaster village yesterday.  There ought to be a sharp look out for them.

Rocky the Alcoholic Rooster – Lancaster, Wisconsin September 12, 1948

    When the Lan­caster canning factory started in on its annual corn pick the other day, that was the signal for Oscar Udelhofen, who lives across the road, to tighten up the fence around his chicken yard. Oscar is trying hard to avoid a situation such as the one which developed a year ago and practically demoralized his flock.

           

    Up to canning time last year, Oscar says, he owned as home loving a flock of chickens as ever stretched a budget. Rocky espe­cially. That year old White Rock was as steady and dependable as any rooster that ever preened a feather. He was Oscar's pride and joy. That is, he was until one day he learned what the hot September sun could do to corn juice

    It is probable, as some hotly argue, that it was one of his more frivolous  consorts  who  led him astray after   having discovered for herself the potentialities of the liquid that trickles down the tiled aides of the canning company's two silos whenever the doors, are opened.

    Credible witnesses insist that a hen was seen heading, for home, wings akimbo, weaving slightly like a fine lady on too high heels, cackling hysterically every step of the way. And Rocky, gentleman that he was, had to accompany her back to see what it was all about.

 

    Be that as it may, Rocky's ad­vent into the canning company yard was the beginning of a debacle. Rocky's whole disposition seemed to change, his owner asserts. In all his life he never be­fore had set foot off the place. Suddenly home was just a place to roost. "We'd be getting up In the morning," says Oscar, "and look out, and there he'd go, walking out on us, ruffled and unkempt and strictly on the loose. It was sickening."

    At the plant the yard men found it hard to concentrate on their work and still watch the antics of Rocky and his flock. ''Goofiest thing you ever saw," says one. "They'd drink, and then walk around in dizzy circles, lift­ing their feet high off the ground like stepping over felled saplings. That old rooster crowed himself hoarse and flapped his wings and ruffled his neck feathers like a fighting cock."

    The hens were right in there holding up their end, the men in­sisted, But Rocky was the pacemaker. Toward the end of the day, when he found it slightly difficult to maintain his balance, he used to sidle around and back up to the silo, lean heavily against the side and with a silly look on his face just let the stuff dribble down into his beak.

    One evening as Rocky led his flock homeward, full of corn and confidence, he made the mistake of challenging a truck to the right of way. The truck won the deci­sion. The frightened hens, squawking and flapping their wings, scuttled for home and safety without once looking back.  Oscar got himself a new rooster after that - a serious, home lov­ing bird, which he aims to keep that way. But he still mourns Rocky. "Doggone, I sure miss that old rounder, he says plaintively.

Nipper The Dog Gets Screen Test in Hollywood – Platteville, WI. August 19, 1934

     DeWayne Hull’s dog, Nipper, is going to Hollywood. Hull operates the homestead farm north of Platteville. Only the thought that his pal has the makings of another movie dog star, and must not be denied this chance, reconciles the Platteville farmer to their parting.  When Nipper was just a young pup Hull knew he was no ordinary dog.  He was “smart as brass tacks.”  Being an acrobatic stunt dog is only one of Nipper’s accomplishments. He enters with zest into suggested routines and appears to invent stunts of his own with which to entertain.   

  

     Hull’s daughter, Mrs. Ruth Sweeney is employed in the Hollywood movie production colony.  She is taking Nipper back with her. Speculating over Nipper’s chances in Hollywood, Hull says: “It may be that someday I’ll see Nipper again in a screen play. I am sure if he saw me in the audience he would jump right out of the picture toward me.” They are inseparable pals, and the prospect of Nipper going to Hollywood is causing Hull considerable heartache.