The dog hater of Fillmore

There are lots of different ways people get out of harmony mentally, and even the quiet little town of Fillmore had some.  Starting in the 1940's and as late as the 60's there was a campaign to eradicate coyotes in the west in an effort to protect sheep and other livestock.  The  Federal Bureau of Land Management (BLM) led the campaign by placing baits of fresh meat laced with strychnine in areas away from domestic dogs.  I don't know why the sheep herders put up with that because their dogs often fell victim, too.  Strychnine is a horrible poison because it chokes off the airway and the victim slowly dies in horrible convulsions and obvious pain.  It only takes a tiny amount to work, and some of the people placing it were affected by casually touching their mouth or face after handling the stuff.  Although I don't remember anyone I knew actually dying from it, it did happen.  Tthe handlers would get a trace of strychnine dust on their hands in spite of their rubber gloves, and when they stopped to eat a sandwich or something for lunch, it would get them.  It was just horrible.  The Federal government had several episodes with trying to build up enmity between themselves and the public in the rural West at that time and the strychnine campaign was one of those.  Public furor slowly rose until they couldn't resist it any longer and the government had to get out of the poison business.  Private people like ranchers could buy it after that, but eventually all strychnine use was outlawed.

While I was growing up there were three times my parents decided it would be nice to have a dog.  One of these was a stray dog, but the other two were dogs they sought out.  I really loved having a dog, especially taking it on long hikes up the Canyon or out to "Flint Prairie", an area where the Indians used to camp and make arrowheads and an excellent spot for hunting arrowheads and flint knives (They were actually made from obsidian, not flint, but we didn't know the difference.)  On each of those times, we had the dog for only a few months before the dog killer made his rounds.  We never knew who it was, and as far as I know he was never caught.  It seemed to be about once a year or so that he'd show up and cover the whole town in the middle of the night.  One morning people would wake up to find their dogs dead, with half-eaten, strychnine laced meat nearby.  It seemed like the killer planned his route ahead of time and when he was ready he'd drive it, throwing the poison out from his vehicle into every yard where he knew there was a dog.  It seemed likely it might even have been two, with one driving and one throwing the meat from the back.  It was a miracle that no children were killed with that nasty stuff laying around the homes.  Our dogs were nothing special, just "Everything dogs," but Dr. Beckstrand up at the corner from us kept 2 or 3 registered weimereiners and those dogs were valuable.  He kept them in a big, chain-link fence, but it wasn't high enough to keep out the poisoners.

This was a sad time.