Tolkkinen: Farm dogs are so cute, except for all their disgusting habits

CLITHERALL, Minn. — I used to think of myself as a semi-sorta-OK country girl. I could split wood. I’d plucked chickens. Baked bread from our own wheat.

Then we got a dog.

Willa— a blend of breeds, floppy brown ears and a curly tail — was four months old when we adopted her from the Wadena County Humane Society in 2022.

And let me tell you, she is disgusting. There’s not a dead thing she won’t roll in, a snake she won’t thrash around in her mouth, deer droppings she won’t gobble like candy.

Just writing this, my face is scrunched up in disgust like Calvin of Calvin & Hobbes getting kissed by Susie Derkins.

Last fall, as my husband and son were setting out decoys for duck hunting on what we call the Big Slough, Willa and I went walking along a wooded trail. Off leash, as it’s our property. In the fading light, Willa saw the critter first in the clearing ahead. She bolted for it, and then then I saw it, too. Black with a white stripe.

“Willa! No!” I screamed, my voice ragged. But there was nothing to be done about it. She charged to her fate, and for the first and (hopefully) only time in my life, I witnessed the cloud of vapors spraying from a skunk’s hind end. In short order, she came howling and whining back, eyes half shut, stopping to rub her face against the earth.

It was not the first time I asked my husband if we wouldn’t be better off living in a city.

Especially this time of year, when wood ticks and deer ticks are everywhere. Willa and the cat, Wilbur, go outside whenever they want, which would be fine, but then the little tick taxis want to come back in. I’ve found their riders on couches, on floors, even scurrying up the chest freezer. If they’re stuck on the animals, I won’t pull them off unless my husband is gone; if he’s around, I make him do it. Unlike me, he is genuinely country born and bred. He grew up milking cows, cleaning calf pens and hunting. To him, ticks are a nuisance, not anything to lose your lunch over.

Growing up, “We dealt with so many gross things,” he said.

He has confided some of those things to me, but I will spare you the details, gentle city reader.

Last week, through the dining room window, I glimpsed Willa “playing” outside with a chipmunk. I Calvined and wheeled away. It wasn’t much later that she started barking and barking. And barking.

“What is Willa barking about?” asked our 12-year-old son, who had come down specially from his room to ask the question.

“Maybe she treed a raccoon.” She had done it once before, yapping her head off.

But no. It wasn’t a raccoon. It was a muskrat that had unluckily wandered across the farmyard. Outside in the thicket near the cottonwood trees, Willa was engaged in mortal combat. The muskrat gave as good as he got, and blood was being flung around like a Jackson Pollock painting. My husband had to whack the poor injured muskrat in the head, killing it with one blow. Willa grabbed the carcass, blood streaming from wounds near her eye, lip and chest, prancing around with it in triumph.

I mean, I’ve gotten used to the deer legs she’s dragged into the yard. I’m OK throwing slimy balls for her to chase. I’ll wash the stink off her without gagging.

But that muskrat. Willa’s wounds. For days she was scratching them open. They’re healing, but … yeah, you should see my face right now. A grimace of Calvin-esque proportions.

Why do we love dogs so much? I mean, we adore Willa. Her ears blow back when she runs and she’ll race figure-eights around us when we’re out walking, a big happy grin on her face. Shoot, it’s hard to get mad at her when she does gross things just because she looks so darned pleased with herself. Plus, her eyes are the prettiest amber.

And eyes are the key, according to a 2015 study from Japan. Researchers there discovered that humans and dogs bond by gazing into each other’s eyes. Just like how we bond with human babies.

One morning, someone forgot to set the weight on the kitchen trash can. Willa dragged garbage around the house. Her prize, an empty bacon package, sat on the couch.

Maybe city dogs are just as gross. I wouldn’t know. I’ve always been partial to cats, and Willa is my first dog. But you’d think there’d be less opportunity to roll in dead things in the city. There’d be neat sidewalks and fenced-in yards. She couldn’t roam freely around snuffling out muskrats and woodchucks. She would be leashed. Her very nature would be restrained and she would become a civilized dog, a city girl’s dog.

Her escapades are something I feel a real country woman should take in stride, pouring peroxide in a wound or plucking off ticks without much comment. Just doing what needs to be done.

Willa has taught us many lessons in her three years with us. About love, about friendship, about her capacity for table scraps.

And as for me, she’s taught me that I’m a lot more city than I care to admit.