October 31, 2002

The two-section Mertzon townsite was the heaviest stocked country in the county in the 1930s. Milk cows grazed staked to cedars; burros ranged free to bray at the saddle horses contained in small traps. Chickens vied for room claimed by turkeys and geese and ducks. Dogie lambs bleated a mournful cry on the dry springs. Rare was a dwelling without a collection of dogs, cats and maybe a rabbit hutch. And I wrote you about the old man who wintered over two hundred ewes on town lots.

Open range law still prevails in Mertzon. Over west of the school, a fellow keeps chickens. His inventory runs heavy on roosters. He might be more of a sportsman than an egg producer, as Mertzon has a strong history of successful game chicken operations. (In Texas, cock fighting is against the law. Raising or owning chickens is not, be they fighters or layers.)

San Angelo is in the process of enacting a difficult-to-enforce pet law. Proposed is a statute to prohibit citizens from owning more than four dogs without having a kennel license. I haven't read a paper in a week, but the last edition I read had some plenty hot letters complaining over the size of the allotment. In one letter supporting a ceiling on canines, goats were included. Once in the summer, the City Council considered — and may still be considering — limiting goat ownership to 40 animal units, or two hundred head. If the limit is correct, the odd 10 square miles of the Wool Capital are destined to be a goat ranch the likes of which haven't been seen in Texas since the glorious days of the Angora reigning over the hill country.

One lady wrote that she loved her six dogs as much as she would children. Little does she know, but equal love was the theme of the Big Depression for kids and dogs. Parents loved dogs as much as they loved children. Neither party was showered with affection. It was all a distant love, keeping the kids and the dogs out of sight in the back yard or in the pasture, or down on the river bank.

If the issue continues, balancing dog legislation against goat regulation is going to be tedious for the Council. Red and white Boer goats do twin. But Boers don't have litters, so a citizen with six dogs is going to out produce the goat man with six goats at the rate of 20 or 30 puppies every three months to a dozen kids every six months.

Boer goat husbandry makes raising woolies look like the downside of a penny arcade. Eleven thousand of all breeds of goats were slaughtered a week or so ago nationwide. On the same week, four thousand sold at the Tuesday sale in San Angelo. The way every patch of ground nowadays is a goat ranch, seemed like 11,000 head were pastured between San Angelo and my turnoff out of Mertzon. Any space large enough to unroll a big bale of hay is considered large enough to raise goats.

Must be a way to resolve the issue of how many dogs people living in San Angelo need. Might be a solution to permit transferring the quota from goldfish lovers to dog lovers, or maybe to give credit for not having a backyard stocked with Boers or a laundry room full of Siamese cats. (Watch for a coalition between the National Audubon Society and International Goldfish Bowl Association attacking feral and domestic cats. Bird watchers have already endorsed leghold traps in California, much to the chagrin of the Pan American Council of Tabbies Unlimited.)

Even four dogs per household will make goat ranching pretty tough in town. Dogs sure like to hear the piercing death cry of goats. Boer goats are probably as high-strung as the hair variety when facing death.

I know I sure was emotional in the days when I tried to raise more Angora goats than the bobcats could eat over north of Mertzon. I'd be driving down the road on a beautiful day and break down sobbing so hard I couldn't see to hold my pickup on the road. A merciful post-shearing rain removed my misery. All that remained after an August cloudburst was 20 head of spoiled nannies we missed in the brush and a mortgage at the San Angelo National Bank on 300 dead Angora goats.

The Mertzon dog catcher says he misses the days when citizens looked after pets and practiced their own animal control. He'd just set a live trap in front of my town house for a black and white cat on the loose after biting a school kid. He asked the color of my cat in case he trapped her. I tried to remember. Last I saw of her was in either '94 or '95. He must be awfully busy running his trap line, as he drove off before I could finish my answer...

October 31, 2002

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