AiredaleTerriers.org Airedale Terrier Information & Referral Resource

Mackey wasn't our first dog and certainly not my Mom's first as she always had at least one or two at all times growing up. Well, I was 10 when we got Mackey. We gated him in the kitchen and we all went to bed. We left the light on for him and newspaper on the floor. He howled and barked and cried and carried on so loudly and pitifully and then there was an awful stench that prompted my Dad to get out of bed and check on the weeping puppy downstairs. We had just lost an English Pointer so we were not strangers to large type dogs and my Mom had an Airedale growing up.

Anyway...my Dad turned on the lights to see what that Gawd Awful Stink was...Mackey had pooped all over the floor and then run through it and jumped on the walls so there were poo-poo pawprints all over the light aqua kitchen walls. Next day...Dad bought a roll of polyethelene and unrolled it and cut it to their bedroom floor and Mackey slept very peacefully from then on in the bedroom with Mom and Dad.

Then there was the time he bit the bratty trailer trash boy from a couple of streets away. He was yelling at Mackey waving a saber ( well a stick actually) at the dog and Mackey caught him by the arm in mid stride just as he got to the neighbors' yard. We had to put up a stockade fence.

Then there was the time when my Mom and I had to go out for something and we couldn't find Mackey (these were the days when there no leash laws and dogs seemed to roam freely and relatively peaceful except for old Mike next door who killed cats all the time!). So off we go in the car and just up the street from the house we spy Mackey on the sidewalk on his way home. He saw us and started chasing the car...my Mom remembered my Dad's bad advice and stepped on the gas so he could no longer keep up with the car ("Give it the Gun" he would say)...would give up and go home and wait for us to return.

Well NEVER underestimate the sheer will-power of an Airedale. He not only kept up with us but got in front of us and then went right under the car.

I'm screaming and crying as I look out the back of the station wagon window and see him rolling in the street...get up... and shake himself off. He then high tailed it home. My Mom is near hysteria by now and is taking it out on me and yelling for me to shut-up! She turned the car around and sped towards home to see if she had killed our beloved Mackey.

There he was on the front lawn, waiting for us...licking his wounds. He had fortunately passed under the center of the car and missed all the wheels completely. We rushed him to the vet's and other than some abrasions and some very sore muscles, he was fine. Now we never had that problem with the Pointer!

I could continue for hours with Mackey stories, but my point being is they are not like other dogs. They have their own unique quirkiness that can only be handled and appreciated by a limited amount of people out there.

Lesley Mattuchio
leslm@mediaone.net
9/5/00