Side Trail
Puppy Soup!
Kent Hanawalt
I had again been asked to take a temporary position as administrator of another nursing home this time on the Crow reservation - and of course my Australian Shepard, Max, went along.
As I was leaving the Care Center for the day - and as usual - Max beat me to the door. As I was walking toward the door to catch up with him, one of the residents called me over.
“Make good stew,” said Doreen, pointing at my dog.
I’d been warned that the last administrator had brought his dog ‘Midnight’ to work with him until he heard the words “midnight snack” muttered by an old Indian. Historically, many of the plains tribes had eaten dog, and in fact Lewis and Clark had often eaten dog and horse in their explorations of the NorthWest. Even well into the 20th century skinned pups were seen hanging by their ears in Indian camps.
“Oh, Doreen,” I had said, “feel his bones. He’s too skinny to make good stew”.
“Make good soup,” she replied with an expressionless face.
“No, his meat would be stringy even if you boiled it,” I said. “And you never ate dog anyway.”
“Make good soup,” she repeated, as Max and I went out the door.
The next day I fell in beside a Native CNA as she wheeled Doreen out of the dining room.
“Doreen wants to make soup out of my dog,” I told the Aide.
“Oh, Doreen is Crow,” said the Aide. “Crow don’t eat puppies that’s the Sioux.”
Doreen finally cracked a smile. “I was just fooling with you,” she said.
But the next day Doreen called me over to the dinner table where beef and gravy was being served.
“Have you had your lunch yet?” she asked. “It’s puppy.”
At Christmas the staff did an adopt-a-resident. I got Doreen. Among the gifts I had for her was a can of Campbell’s soup with a picture of Max and labeled “Puppy Soup”. She was tickled!
“Order me a case,” she said.
During my tenure at that facility in Crow, Doreen always had a smile for me. She had tried me out, and I had passed the test. I was OK for a white man.
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