Note to readers: this blog is in large part a record for my
granddaughter and so this is a long and somewhat tedious catalogue of
life-with-dogs as a record for her. Feel free to quit reading after four paragraphs.
My YD and some of her friends did a three week plus tour
down the Nahanni River in the NWT earlier this month. One of the good friend is
the owner of a large and loving dog named Bear that the friend and her husband
rescued from a miserable situation in which the dog had been peppered with
shot. The YD and her friends come to our bush to hike, so I have met this dog
from time to time and know that he has recovered from his trauma and is sleek
and well-cared for.
While paddling madly through the white water YD and friend
both boarded their dogs. Her father and I got Shammy, her beautiful and placid
white Doodle (plus her cat who can even unplacid Shammy) and Bear was boarded
with friends also. This morning the friend posted on Facebook the reunion with
Bear and I am not ashamed to say that I still have tears in my eyes when I
think about how joyous that greeting was. Toward the end of her book Rilla of Ingleside, L M Montgomery
writes of the reunion of a returning soldier with his dog that the dog was ‘mad
with joy’. After watching Bear greet his mistress, I now know exactly what ‘mad
with joy’ looks like and I am very glad to have seen it.I am sorry I cannot get it to load here.
The YD’s laid back dog was not quite that excited when her
mistress turned up but there was much wagging, ball bringing, dancing and foot
licking that carried on for quite some time. I think it was Kipling that wrote
of the cost of ‘giving your heart to a dog to tear’ (yep, link ) but it sure can be rewarding. Not that Shammy had a sad time while the YD was
away. She was walked, brushed, trimmed, washed (and hosed down if she had found
a delightful puddle of poop to roll around in), given numerous cookies and had
splendid treats like bacon added to her dog dish. And Callie Cat reduced the
local chipmunk population to nervous breakdown status, at which deed I
rejoiced. The wretched little beasts have 295 acres to inhabit but insist on
making holes in the lawn and flower beds of the other half acre. They deserve a
cat who sits over one of the holes in the lawn for an hour at a time ……………… waiting.
JG and I got a dog when the ED was just over two years old.
She had exhibited fear of dogs and we wanted her to overcome it. Since I also
had a 13 month old baby, getting a large and happy hound was, perhaps, not the
smartest move we could have made (three rambunctious young animals, two hands)
but the ED quickly took to Rusty (named for his coat colour) and I was agile
enough to cope, mostly. I still recall drawing a cartoon of my father, though,
the ED’s hand grasped in one of his, the strap of the YD’s harness and the dog’s
leash in the other hand, and the dog and leash wound tightly round his legs. In the photo below he has sneaked into the living room and relaxed on a blanket.
A policeman arrived to investigate and I took him to the
kitchen to see Rusty who, shameless beggar that he was, lay down on his back
and waved four paws at the cop, inviting a belly rub. End of incident.
However, the seizures and irrational temper spells got even
worse, it became unsafe for small girls to walk him, he became incontinent and
totally lethargic and miserable, seizing several times a day. We decided, for
his own sake, to have him put down. Sadly the day I took him to be euthanized
was the first good day he had had for a month and he bounded into the car,
trotted into the Humane Society building with tail wagging and turning him over
to them was maybe the most difficult thing I had ever had to do. I sat in the
car outside and wept. Heart torn indeed. He was no more than five years old.
JG and the girls longed for another dog. This time we got a
small one, a miniature beagle from a pet store. We quickly named him Bugle (for
how he sounded on a rabbit trail) and I attempted, without success, to train
him. Bugle was much more like a cat than a dog, living with us but reserving
his enthusiasm for chasing rabbits and deer on our weekend rural property,
stealing mittens from unsuspecting small hands, playing ball with the peppers
and tomatoes from my vegetable garden and soaking up heat by lying directly
under the wood stove in the cabin. Even at his small size I had to put a choke
chain on him to take him anywhere.
One spring night we arrived at our rural property and he
wrenched himself from my hands before I could get the chain collar over his
head and bugled off in pursuit of a deer. He did not return that night, not
unusual, but as the time stretched out the kids and my BIL and I searched the
whole property, calling and listening,
terrified that he had been caught by the damn chain. We never found him. What
we did find were his and the deer’s tracks leading to a beaver pond half
covered with rotting ice. And I have always believed that the deer managed to
cross the ice and icy water but that the dog didn’t make it. Or at least I hope
the end was that quick. We advertised and searched for weeks with no luck. And
we left his bowl with food for longer than that.
As soon as they stopped mourning, JG and the girls wanted
another dog. THIS time we went to the pound and came home with a small female
terrier mix. A sweet and timid biscuit coloured (we named her Biscuit) fuzzy
bundle who lay on my slippers as a puppy and had to have one of them to sleep
with for long after she grew up. She stayed close to the cabin on weekends but
loved to run in the bush if we were with her. She ignored rabbits and deer and
even seemed somewhat dubious about squirrels.
She sneaked (or was encouraged to sneak) onto the kids’ beds at night.
She loved the fenced yard of the city house and it was quite big enough to
satisfy her need for exercise. She tidily did her business behind the hedges
unless she was really cross with me for brushing her out and then I would get a
protest movement on the stoop of the kitchen door.
Biscuit lived with us for seventeen years and the only time
she ever terrorized anyone was my visiting aunt when she sat on the kitchen
floor and held her unwavering gaze on my aunt’s cereal bowl. ‘Why is she
staring at me?’ said my childless, petless and elderly aunt. When I told her
that this was the dog’s habit with the daughters, who gave her the tail end of
their cereal and milk in the morning, my aunt was not much comforted. ‘How much
should I leave her?” she asked, a small quaver in her voice. The dog was
supposed to stay in the kitchen and after I went to work full time I did not
twig to the fact that she did not stay there unsupervised until JG brought home
a guest in grey flannels and a navy blazer who sat down on an occasional chair
in the living room and got up covered in dog hair. She had appropriated the
chair as her daytime nap spot and I had not noticed beige dog hair on beige
chair.
We buried her in the old orchard when she finally had to
leave us. And I thought I was free to live a dogless and carefree life until
the YD, who had longed for a dog for years in spite of my fervent declarations
that I would not baby sit, came home with Shammy a few years ago. You may know
that since that time this blog has been littered with posts about caring for a blonde
and beautiful doodle with no damn sense about either porcupines or skunks.
Dog memories. The YD, as a toddler, used to throw herself
onto Rusty when I reprimanded her, cry into his coat and, I swear, wipe her
eyes on his ears as he lay patiently under her. The beagle used to scorch his
coat lying under the wood stove and come out quite crispy down the back.
Scorched dog smells very strange. Biscuit grew a heavy underlayer of fur in the
winter and had to be taken outside and brushed and brushed, with any luck in a
strong wind, each spring to get the fine hairs out of her coat before every hot
air vent in the house was choked with the stuff and it lay in drifts on the
floors.
The YD’s friends, owners of Bear, come to our bush to hike
with The YD and Shammy. It is a pleasure to watch the dogs play together in the
snow and afterwards lie side by side resting up for yet more play. And it sure
is quiet after they have all gone home.
Today I am free of dogs, cat, grandkid and friend and even
husband since he has gone shopping for the afternoon. It sure is quiet and
serene. Very quiet.
