Beavis and Chief 1994

Backtracking a couple of years to 1994, In the Spring of 1994 I bought Kelvin an English Bull Dog puppy. He saw an add in the paper that a lady was selling these dogs, show dogs, champion bloodlines, north of Savannah, MO. We went to see these puppies and I raked and scraped together the 600.00 for the asking price. It was a cute little fat puppy that Kelvin named Chief after the KC Chiefs. In the Summer of 1994 we had a family reunion at Donald’s house. Everyone came. We brought Chief with us since we didn’t have a “dog sitter” and couldn’t leave him at home for very long without taking him outside. Kelvin had fenced in the small yard but we were afraid someone would open the gate and he would get out or someone would steal such an expensive dog, so we took him with us. I was a little afraid of what Donald would say, but it turned out that he loved the dog and wanted one just like him. Everyone oohed and ahhed over the puppy, he was really cute. It wasn’t long that he grew up and took on the characteristics of his parents which were big and ugly. He slobbered all over everything and had a deep gruff sounding bark. We decided to take Chief and Pebbles to Bluff Woods to walk along the trails there, climbing steep hills, over the creeks and higher. Pebbles ran around like a crazy little dog while Chief was fat and lazy trying to keep up with us while Pebbles chasing squirrels and rabbits, never seemed to tire. On the way back down the trail Chief fell over and lolled his tongue out of the side of his mouth and couldn’t go on. Kelvin picked up the 70 or so pound dog and tried to carry him the rest of the way. I told him we needed to get him to the little waterfall where we could put him in the water to cool him off. He was afraid he was going to die as Crusher, the pit bull had years before. We got to the pool of water and Kelvin bathed him in the cool water. He seemed to perk up a bit but he carried him to the car just the same.
We finally got Pebbles to calm down and get in the car. Chief was fine after that but he had a bad habit of chasing cats, mine and others in the neighborhood. I told Kelvin I wouldn’t stand for that. He would have to do something. The neighbors next door had a full Persian cat that had had kittens and gave us one, a fluffy yellow and white one with a typical pugged face. He named him Beavis. We paid 50.00 for him and I didn’t want Chief chasing Beavis all over the trailer court and into the path of a fast moving car. Beavis had the habit of not using the litter box and I got tired of that too, made him stay outside except to come in and eat.
One day a man from Amazonia came and wanted to know if Kelvin would sell the dog. I didn’t think there was anyway he would give up Chief but I went into the bedroom where Kelvin was taking a nap and asked him. He said he needed the money for child support and yes he would sell him for the 600.00 I had paid for him in the first place. He didn’t come out to say goodbye he just laid in bed with tears in his eyes.
Later a lady I worked with at the hospital said she knew the man who had bought Chief and said he ran a puppy mill. Chief would spend the rest of his days in a small cage grinding out puppies. Kelvin was furious, I was too. I had never thought Kelvin would ever sell that dog! The man had come over twice to ask us to sell him. Kelvin had turned him down the first time and said there was “no way” he would sell his best friend. Vallie was still young then, she and Shelby would come over on weekends, put a leash on him and he would drag them all over the court chasing cats. They fell many times as he was too big and heavy for them to control.
One day Kelvin came inside and said the neighbor on the right side of us said he heard two big dogs growling and fighting with a cat that morning. The neighbor said he knew it was Beavis. The two dogs, the culprits in the melee, was a Doberman and a German Shepherd. We had had Beavis’s toenails removed on his front feet because he was to be a house cat so his defenses were limited. We had gotten him neutered when he was 7 or 8 months old. That was supposed to stop his urination in the house, after 3 weeks he started it up again and that was why we put him out. Kelvin found the remaining sections of Beavis’s body and buried them at the salvage yard where Kelvin had been working for the Baldwins.