Otis - A Church Dog's Tale

Otis - "The Original Church Dog"

I have been a member of the Junction Hill Pentecostal Church since before I was born. We had our first service on December 7th, 1963 and my Mom was in attendance. And on December 19th, 1963, I was born. We have been blessed with six good pastors over the course of 57 years... And two church dogs!

Otis was the first "church dog" and was owned by Pastor Mike Blue and his family. When the Blues resigned the pastorate, Otis stayed and became a part of Pastor Dwain Galiher's family. When Otis went to that "Big Rabbit Hunt in the Sky", Hank arrived to take his place. Hank reigned supreme for a few years until he also "Moved to the shady side of the barn".

Otis' pedigree was "Heinz 57" but he was primarily beagle. Otis was special and he knew it. My mother brought "doggie treats" to Otis so often, that he came to recognize her car and would meet her in the parking lot for his snacks! He lived a long and fulfilled life, but there was that one night, when his grip on life was down to a single paw...

On that particular night (actually around 2AM in the morning), I received a call from my pastor, Rev. Mike Blue. In my sleep dazed state, I heard "Brother Ray, I need some help! I think Otis has rabies!!" Well... That brought me out of my sleep and when I could coherently converse, I asked for some details. It appeared that Otis was howling as if in pain, foaming at the mouth and was snapping and biting at anyone who came near him!

Brother Mike was prepared to shoot Otis but the entire Blue family, Ladonna, Jessica and Brandon, pled for Otis' life with tears and lamentations! Brother Mike then told me, "I just can't bring myself to shoot him. Could you come and put Otis out of his misery??"

Being the hard-hearted executioner that I am, I got dressed, loaded up my trusty Remington 22 and headed out to the parsonage.

When I arrived, the whole family was on the back porch, crying and watching Otis in the throes of rabies. And it was just as Brother Mike had described and perhaps worse. Otis was foaming at the mouth, howling, moaning, snapping at himself and anyone that came near him.

However, as I looked at him, it seemed that he was snapping at one of his hind legs. When I got close enough, I could see that the coated cable that he was tied up with, had gotten tightly wound around one hind leg! It was cutting off blood circulation and causing Otis extreme pain!

I then informed the whole family that Otis didn't have rabies, but we would need to get the cable un-wound from his leg. There was great joy and rejoicing at this announcement... but the problem still remained - How in the cat hair were we going to get the cable off of Otis' leg?!?!

Well, I found some old gloves in my truck and when I had them on, proceeded to calmly talk to Otis and get near to him. I finally got close enough to pin him down and grab his muzzle with one hand and hold his body down with my knee and the other hand. Then I instructed Pastor Blue to see if he could get the cable un-wound.

Oh Wow! That was a sight to behold and a ruckus to hear! Otis went into second gear with his (muffled) howling, writhing, kicking and thrashing around!

The cable would not come off. I told Brother Mike to get some side-cutters and see if he could cut the cable. But the tempered steel strands resisted the jaws of the pliers. After we had tried and tried to remove the cable with as much ease and comfort to Otis as we thought possible, I finally said "OK, there's one final thing we can do."

It wasn't pretty...

I had Brother Mike to help me and we held Otis down, I straddled his body and then sat down on his head! I was facing the hind leg so I just told everyone to stay back and plug their ears!

I went to work on the cable and Otis went into over-drive gear!

With his mouth partly free, he began howling, moaning, snapping, whining and even screaming! He couldn't get up with my two-hundred plus pounds on him but it didn't prevent him from trying!

After I had worked on the cable for a few minutes, it came loose and the leg was free. I continued to sit on Otis and the sound reduced to whining, then whimpering and finally... Silence.

Having had some experience with dogs, I knew that when I let Otis up, he might try to attack anyone that was near. So... I instructed the entire Blue family to go back to the porch.

I carefully got up off of Otis while I held him down with my hands. Then I released him and ran like a scared squirrel!

Otis just laid there... Nothing... No sound, no whining, no tail wag, no movement at all...

"Is he dead?", was asked by the Blue family. I answered "I didn't think so" but I knew Otis might need some encouragement. I asked Pastor Blue to whistle to him.

When Otis heard the whistle, he jumped up, shook himself all over, started wagging his tail and trotted over to the family waiting on the porch!

There was great joy and rejoicing from Sister Ladonna and the children, but I will never forget Pastor Blue's parting remark...

"You know, Brother Ray, I'm gonna kill that dog!"

Hank - "The 2nd Church Dog"

This story re-told with permission from the participants and the events as recorded, are strictly from the story-tellers recollection

Special Thanks To:

Pastor Mike Blue and his family for the story

Pastor Dwain Galiher for the picture of Otis

Evangelist Davy Boggs for the picture of Hank