Behind the Lines: by David Heiller

David Heiller It really wasn’t fair, the way Randi Vick hood-winked me. She had come to The Argus on Monday, October 11, beaming about a dog that one of her home health care clients needed to give away. David and Rosie and her cauliflower. Rosie was truly an omnivore “It’s a miniature dachshund,” Randi said. That caught my ear. My wife, Cindy, and I had been talking just the day before about getting that very breed of dog. My sister Kathy has one that we like, named Willie, and some friends from Duluth who had just visited us have one too, named Peanuts. Miniature dachshunds seem to lend themselves to spunky names like Willie and Peanuts. So I told Randi to find out more about the dog, how old she was, what she was like, that kind of thing. Randi said yes, she’d do that on Friday, and let me know more. I told Cindy about it that night. We agreed again that it wouldn’t be a bad idea. We already have two dogs, but one, MacKenzie, is 11-1/2 years old, and is showi...

David Heiller Rosie was onto something, that was obvious. I could hear her growling and yipping in the “West Wing” of the barn on Saturday afternoon. I tuned it out for about an hour, but finally my curiosity got to me. I put down my hammer and went to investigate. After a bit of searchin g, I located her burrowing into a stack of hay bales, sniffing, and whining. It wasn’t easy to see her, wedged between the hay and the wall. There isn’t much to see to begin with, Rosie being a miniature dachshund and all. I grabbed her by the collar and pulled her up. She turned her growl in my direction. That’s when I heard a snarl in return, somewhere in the pile of bales. I can handle snarls from animals I know. But snarling visitors, whoever they may be, are not welcome in the Heiller barn. So I set Rosie back down. Rosie and the possum This time she tore into the hay like a tornado. The other critter had had enough of Rosie too, and they met in their hidden arena, their howls...