Arena Tracks: Tinkerbell the Terror

I’ve met some pretty great dogs through my lifetime of rodeo, barrel races, team ropings and the like.  My friend Nikki Harrington had the sweet Amy who would “WooWoo” for a treat.  Hank Parr met me in the middle of a crowded Rapid City parking lot, happy as all get out to find a friend he recognized from his hometown.  Kalie Anderson lovingly traveled with Jake, a golden retriever, for ten plus years.  Even after his passing, she still has a photo of the legendary dog up in her trailer and she told me, “Jake is always along for the ride.”  Whether you call them rodeo dogs or truck dogs, you have to admit that the canines that grace the pick ups and trailers of horse people are a special lot.  Friendly and unfailingly loyal, those dogs protect us and keep us company as we travel across the country.  Sometimes, they entertain, amaze and even aggravate us…if just a little.  This is the story of one of the great rodeo dogs I’ve known: Tinkerbell Gehlsen.

D’Ann Gehlsen never went looking for a little dog.  Living on a ranch near Mission, South Dakota, the Gehlsens always had hardy ranch dogs – Australian Shepherds, Blue Heelers, Corgis and the occasional mixed breed or two.  However, following a tragic event that left D’Ann without a companion, her brother brought her Tinkerbell, a 15 month old rat terrier his daughter Darcy had gotten for her boyfriend.  Having lost a dog of his own and knowing how D’Ann loved her animals, her brother knew she’d be devastated and needing company.  The first night Tinkerbell was at the Gehlsen ranch she yanked the leash out of D’Ann’s hand and took off running into the darkness.  Fortunately, the leash wrapped around a cedar tree and D’Ann caught up with her, but that would be a portent of things to come.

Tinkerbell was…A LOT.  D’Ann’s brother and her niece Darcy drag race and one day as they were doing burnouts at the starting line of a qualifying race the announcer stopped the action asking for the owner of the little white dog to please clear her from the track.  Tinkerbell was beginning to earn her future nickname, Stinkerbell, as she had clawed through the screen in their motorhome and jumped down ten feet before heading across the parking lot to find her people.  It wasn’t the last screen she would destroy.  The Gehlsens came to keep the tools to fix and replace screens at hand at all times.

About two weeks of Tinkerbell was almost enough for D’Ann.  They had located an Australian Shepherd puppy they were planning to pick up and figured they could take Tinkerbell back to her first family.  The night before they were to leave, one of D’Ann’s horses, having had enough of her antics, chased Tink down and purposefully pawed her, leaving her with a compound fracture of her hind leg.  The good folks at Cottonwood Vet Clinic in Kearney were familiar with the Gehlsens and did their very best to fix up the little rat terrier.  She was fitted with an external fixator and sent home.  This was the end of March.  Four months later, having been weaned down to a hard cast and bound and determined to hunt, Tink went flying through the trees on the scent of a rabbit and re-fractured the leg.  It took bone grafts and 11 months of veterinary care and rehab before Tink was four legged again.  

Now Speed Gehlsen is a kind and quiet man.  He likes horses and dogs and certainly likes his wife.  However, Speed was not an early fan of Tinkerbell.  He kept waiting for the little terror to go back HOME.  During a trip to town with their new Aussie, Yogi, D’Ann suggested that Tinkerbell’s name should be BooBoo to go with Yogi.  Speed said, “Don’t you think Darcy should get to name her own dog?”  An awkward silence followed. Little did Speed know that Tinkerbell wasn’t Darcy’s dog any longer.

Tinkerbell became tightly connected to D’Ann and shadowed her wherever she went.  They’d ride together, loping through the pasture, the little dog keeping up with D’Ann’s big horses.  During one ride they came upon a prairie dog and Tink went to work terrorizing the creature.  She circled the mound in a spiral that eventually got the rodent dizzy.  Tink turned to D’Ann who kicked the prairie dog into the air.  When it landed Tink trotted over and peed on it, lifting her leg as if to say, “There.”  Each day they would ride by, Tink would trot over and pee on that dead prairie dog, just to make a point.

Rat Terriers are hunters and Tink was no exception.  She’d hunt birds and fight the cats for their victims as well.  She was particularly proud of her ability to kill bunnies and would bring them to the porch to show D’Ann.  D’Ann was the center of Tinkerbell’s world and being separated from her caused Tink to do some pretty outrageous things in an effort to find her.  The little dog could squeeze through insanely small cracks in the windows of pick ups.  Tinkerbell always wore a collar with D’Ann’s number clearly marked.  The second number on the collar was Speed’s and he got his fair share of calls as well.

D’Ann, along with traveling partners Samantha Flannery, Rose Hildebrandt and Cassy Woodward, stopped off at La Hacienda in Huron, South Dakota following a barrel race.  D’Ann’s phone rang and not recognizing the number, she ignored the call.  “Stupid telemarketers.” Back in Mission, Speed’s phone began to vibrate. The President of the Beadle County Humane Society was on the other end of the line, holding a little white dog that had been dodging in and out of traffic in Huron.  Speed sighed and asked, “Is there a pickup and horse trailer there?  They are probably inside eating.” The fella went into La Hacienda and loudly asked, “Is there a Deanna here?  We have your dog.”  D’Ann, mortified, collected Tink, drove home and wrote a sizable check to the Beadle County Humane Society.

At times, they didn’t even have to be on the road for Tink to cause havoc. D’Ann, four and a half hours away from home at the horse races in Columbus, felt her phone buzz in her pocket. On the other end of the line was her neighbor who lived eight miles from Gehlsens.  Tink had followed Speed on his way to the hay field and stopped off at a local dam where a fisherman caught her and took her to the nearest house.  D’Ann sped home while calling Speed to go collect her dog.  Speed had to stop work to rescue Tink from her latest predicament.  Loaded in the ranch truck, windows down, Tink gleefully hung out of the passenger window, enjoying the scent of the fresh cut hay on her way back home.  Speed told D’Ann that night, “She was hanging out of that window as I drove across that dam and I almost pushed her out.”  

My favorite story of Tinkerbell’s adventures came from Colorado Springs, Colorado, at a Walmart on an extremely busy street.  D’Ann was planning to pick up a new puppy on her way home and had stopped to purchase the needed supplies.  Trying to decide which collar and leash she’d need, an employee excused herself as she needed to grab a leash.  “A little white dog just came walking into the store and she has a collar but no leash”  D’Ann went pale.  “What’s her name?”  “The collar says, Tinkerbell.”  The woman led D’Ann to the front of the store where a jubilant Tinkerbell was being held by another employee.  How she got herself out of the pick up, across the lanes of traffic and INTO THE STORE was a mystery that Tinkerbell would keep to herself.

As I’ve said a million times, “Dogs just don’t live long enough” and the years of adventure began to add up on Tinkerbell as well.  While she still loved to sun herself on the flatbed of D’Ann truck, her hearing was going and cataracts clouded her eyes.  D’Ann loved her to the end of the earth and Tink loved D’Ann.  It was with that love in her heart that D’Ann decided to let Tink go on a good day.  After 14 years of travel, D’Ann said goodbye to her best friend with all the love and dignity the little dog deserved.  Tink sits safely on D’Ann’s mantle in an urn, no longer darting into traffic, stopping races or meandering into stores.  

D’Ann hasn’t brought another small dog into her family since the loss of Tinkerbell, perhaps because she is often reminded of the gray hairs her “niece’s dog” gave her during their time together. Sometimes, the memories are enough and Tinkerbell certainly left behind many, many of those.