Remembering Roxie, My Walking Buddy Saint Bernard

Dogs come into our lives to teach us about love; they depart to teach us about loss. ~Erica Jong

I lost one of my walking buddies last week. Roxie lived across the road from me. She came to her family when she was a pup and already bigger than many dogs are when they are grown. A fuzzy furry sweatheart. Then she grew some more and became a regal, full size Saint Bernard. Her family has a house with one of those porches that go around two sides of it and Roxie liked to sit on that side porch facing my house and keep watch on her world. When the grandkids came to visit and we were outside, Roxie liked to meander on over to our yard to check out what was happening. 

And she loved to go walking with Oscar and me. Every day she'd be out on the porch or yard with an ear out to listen for us to head out to the field for our walk. In her early years, she always heard me, but the last couple of years, her hearing suffered and if she fell asleep on the porch waiting for us, she didn't always wake up. I couldn't help feeling a little guilty when we came back from our walk and she'd be awake and come off the porch to give me that look that said "why did you go without me." A few times I would walk back down the lane because she looked so disappointed. 

She did have that slobber problem that dogs with big mouths have. And she did like to lean on you. Early on, I decided that blue jeans are easy to wash and a little Saint Bernard slobber is a small price to pay for such a sweet companion. My grandkids weren't as sure about that, especially when she came close and shook her head. Then the slobber slingers got them. She wasn't a neat dog. When we walked in the cow pastures, she would rub her neck down in the fresh cow piles as though putting on a little perfume. Not sure her family appreciated her walking with me on those days! She was also quick to scavenger any dead animals we came across. It was useless trying to get her to leave the carcass be. She simply picked whatever it was up and headed for home. Another time her family probably wasn't so happy I'd led her astray. 

She loved the snow because that was her element. She was more than ready to walk when the ground was covered in white. It was easy to imagine her in the Alps with a keg around her neck searching out somebody lost in the snow.  Oscar, who also likes the snow, enjoyed having Roxie along on our walks. They were buddies and the longer walks the better for both of them. Snow in the winter, the creek in the summer were their favorites. 

Then Friday a week ago after I got home from my trip to California, I went for a walk in the rain. Roxie was right there with me and seemed the same as any other day. But the next day she must have had a heart attack. They found her with no sign of trauma, just gone on. I miss her now when we walk. A little Roxie slobber on my jeans would be more than welcome. Roxie bulldozed her way through life, going where she wanted to go and living her her dog life to the fullest. She was a very good neighbor and walking buddy. Go rest high on that mountain, Roxie, where all good dogs surely wait at the gate to welcome their families (and a neighbor or two) home.


Dogs' lives are too short...their only fault, really. ~Agnes Sligh Turnbull

A good dog never dies. ~Mary Carolyn Davies

Life is Better with a Dog Named Oscar

Dogs have a way of finding the people who need them, filling an emptiness we don't even know we have. ~Thorn Jones

Some of you have been asking about how my dog, Oscar, is doing. About a month ago, one of the men working on a room remodel here at the house ran over Oscar. He was parked beside the house in the field and we don't know if Oscar was under his truck or just running along beside him. At any rate, one of the wheels must have run over his leg and broke both bones. 

That was a bad day for me. I was sitting with Mom who was having one of her more unsettled days when I got the call from my husband reporting Oscar had been hurt. My husband was getting his eyes examined and couldn't go home right away. I couldn't leave Mom alone and so couldn't go home to see about my dog friend. A couple of hours passed before my husband finally got home and reported Oscar's leg was broken. I still couldn't leave Mom's, but a neighbor came over to help load Oscar in the van for a trip to the vet. They kept him in the doggie hospital and did surgery on his leg the next day. 

Dog surgery is not cheap, but Oscar is my dog. Dog lovers will understand what I mean when I say he's my dog. He's been my dog since my husband brought him home about four years ago. I had another dog at the time. A chocolate lab that was my dog too, but he was also an independent character who although he'd been neutered had not lost all his romantic desires. Female dogs from around the neighborhood loved Dub and came to get him from time to time to take him off to get in trouble. (Honest, it was never Dub's fault! Or so he would have me believe.) I had to bail him out of doggie jail once and did so gladly. 

For some reason, my husband decided I needed another dog. I resisted. He went shopping on the internet for dogs. Free dogs. He would find one and then have me come look at the dog's picture. I resisted. I had my dog, Dub. I was happy with that. But then he pulled up Oscar's picture. Someone had dropped Oscar in Lexington near a horse farm and a young couple had given him a home. They loved him, but when spring came they were going to have to travel around in their job of training horses. So they advertised for a new home for Oscar. That was the name they gave him. For some reason his sweet face and that name broke down my resistance. A phone call or two later and my husband went to get Oscar and bring him to his new home. From the very first day, he was my dog. Sometimes it just works that way. We thought he was grown. He weighed about sixty pounds. We were very wrong. He kept growing. Now he's over one hundred pounds - bigger even than my old dog, Dub, was. 

Dub passed on one sad summer day a little while after we got Oscar. So it turned out to be a good thing that I stopped resisting and let Oscar join our family. He's a very good dog. He doesn't roll in cow piles or want to drag various dead animal parts home to the yard. Dub was very good at that, but not enjoying the special aroma of those two things is an important good dog attribute out here on the farm. Just ask my neighbors, whose St. Bernard loves to decorate her neck ruff with aromatic cow piles.

Oscar is not a swimmer in spite of obviously having lab in his mix. He will wade a bit when it's very hot. He looks ferocious when he's barking at strangers, but if they will notice, he's usually wagging his tail at the same time. I used to have a dog in the house, a sweet cockerspaniel. I decided Oscar with his good dog manners, would make a wonderful house dog and invited him in. He refused. He did not want to cross the threshold. In fact, he did not want to so determinedly that he sat down like a mule and wouldn't budge. I gave up after a few tries although I continued to hold the door open now and again to invite him in. He always ran the other direction. 

But after his surgery, he was ordered kept in confinement with leash walking only for six weeks. I bought him a bed and we gently pushed him into the house when we brought him home from the doggie hospital. I had to put a trail of scatter rugs across my hardwood floor to get him to walk to the front door to go out. He still won't venture out of the back hallway into the kitchen or living room. He does come down the hallway into my office now to keep me company when I'm working. 

For two weeks I only took him on short walks, but for the last couple of weeks, he's been going on the full walks with me. On leash. He's never tried to run away from me. He's been a model dog. So what if bone shards decorate my office floor and his panting drips all over the rug after we walk. There is also Oscar, inside keeping me company. Sometimes good things come from bad. I'm not sure what will happen after he is released to run free again, but I hope he will still be willing to come inside and keep me company. A dog makes a wonderful writing friend. Especially a good dog like Oscar.

One of the most enduring friendships in history - dogs and their people, people and their dogs. ~Terry Kay

Have you had a good dog in your life?

Good Dog - Coal

                        

 "It came to me that every time I lose a dog they take a piece of my heart with them. And every new dog who comes into my life gifts me with a piece of their heart. If I live long enough, all the components of my heart will be dog, and I will become as generous and loving as they are." --Unknown

Most of you know that I'm a dog person. I got the dog hunger as a kid and have never been without a dog, sometimes two or three, since I got my first one way back when. That's a lot of dogs to take a piece of my heart with them when they passed on. The last few years my dog friends have increased to not only my own dogs, but the neighbor dogs who like to walk with me and my "granddogs," my children's dogs. That means I get to enjoy the fun of these dogs becoming part of the family and them coming home to visit with my children. It also means I have to grieve along with them when they lose one of their four-legged friends. And today, we're missing Coal. 

Coal came into my son's family after they lost Hank, a dog my daughter-in-law had for years before she and my son married. Hank lived to the grand age, for a dog, of 17, but finally he gave up the fight. They got Coal from a rescue place four years ago. He was supposed to be part Australian Shepherd and not get over fifty pounds. But he was solid black except for a spot of white on his chest and he outgrew their predictions by a lot. The kids named him Charcoal because of that black fur. 

He went through his puppy stages but from the beginning, it was obvious he was a  very intelligent dog. He would sometimes herd my grandkids up on the couch if he thought they were straying away too far. He was a tremendous watchdog who could make even the most courageous door to door salesman back up. He didn't like men and for a long time he had to be banished to the backyard if either grandfather came to visit. But he loved me from the start. I'd have to pet Coal when I went in the house before I could even give the grandkids a hug. He wasn't allowed to jump up on people, but you know how grandmas are. He'd jump up on me and put his paws on my shoulder. I think he was trying to teach me to dance, but I've always had two left feet. 

He naturally enough hung around under the baby's highchair. She naturally enough shared her food with him - sometimes giving him a bite of her bread or whatever and then taking a bite herself. He never tried to take it all. The second youngest girl was two when Coal became part of the family and the two of them had a very special friendship. He was her pillow while she watched cartoons. He let her dress him up as a princess although he looked very put upon in the picture that resulted. 

With the idea that he surely had a great deal of lab in him, my son threw him in the pond when he was still a pup thinking he'd enjoy the water. Coal ran out of the water and as far away as he could get from that pond. He missed the lab genes there. But you might say he was a retriever. He could leap high in the air and retrieve any unwary birds right out of the air. 

When he first got sick, that's what we thought had happened to him. That perhaps he had caught a bird, tried to eat it, and got a bone stuck in his throat. He was losing weight. I hadn't seen him for a while but when I went in to keep the kids while my daughter-in-law took Coal to the vet, my heart sank. He looked so sick, but he still came to me and jumped up for his hug. The news at the vet's was worse than anything we could have imagined. Cancer of the spleen with the tumor already so big that it was pushing up into his chest area. 

So Coal came home to die. And he had a few more good weeks with the kids and his beloved family. He kept trying to catch those birds. He kept sitting with the girls as they watched their cartoons. Last week, he even made one of his famous escapes out the front door to run around the neighborhood with the older kids chasing him. He kept being Coal. 

Two days ago he quit eating. Last night he went out into the backyard and lay down and didn't get back up. He turned four years old this week. He was a very good dog. 

"...a good dog is one of the best things of all to be." Dean Koontz

My Dog Dub

If you don't own a dog, at least one, there is not necessarily anything wrong with you, but there may be something wrong with your life. ~Roger Caras 

I lost my dog, Dub, last year before Christmas. He was a very good dog. A chocolate lab registered by his first owners as Coffee W. Crutcher. Those owners got more dog than they bargained for with a lab puppy and he soon found himself chained to a dog house in their yard. Enter my friend, Carolyn. A dog lover like me. A very tender-hearted dog lover. She sees the lab and imagines his life of confinement and offers to take the dog from the owners. They agreed and Coffee W. Crutcher began the next chapter of his life.

Carolyn took him to the vet, did all the necessary things to keep him healthy, loved him, but she lived in town and had a small, unfenced yard. He had too much dog energy for that small space. Enter my wide open farm and the fact that I was down to only one dog. So it was great timing. Coffee W. Crutcher came to live with us here on the farm along with his registration papers, his dog house, his dog dish and his extra heavy duty dog chain and leash. 

So, Coffee W. Crutcher began another new chapter in his life and found a permanent home. He was a dog with energy. The first time I tried to take him for a walk on his leash, just as a training exercise, I ended up being dragged through a briar patch. Next walk we used a choke collar. He was a strong dog and just a little hard-headed. So much so that yelling Coffee didn't penetrate his ears. He didn't even so much as turn his head to see if there was any possibility I might mean him. Crutcher didn't work either, but Dub - short for W - that he could hear.  So this beautiful chocolate lab with the very distinctive name became my dog, Dub. 

Well, as much as he ever became anybody's dog. He was always an independent soul. He liked me. Walked with me every day. At times he'd sit down and patiently wait for me as he's doing in the picture above. He liked going swimming and rarely passed up the opportunity to take a dip in a pond or creek or plop down in a mud puddle. He was a retriever who would not fetch. If I threw a stick or ball, he'd just look at me as if to say, you threw it; you go get it. He had a good appetite. Ate his dog food and supplemented his calorie intake by killing the occasional unlucky rabbit or squirrel. Once some wild ducks hatched out around our pond. Dub waited until the ducks were about half grown before he swam out and "retrieved" one of them as a tasty snack. Then he went out and got the others, one by one. Not a good place for ducks on Dub's pond.  

Other dogs loved him. My yard became the gathering place for all the neighbor dogs. They came to lay beside Dub. Or on top Dub. They loved Dub. He'd been to the vet to be neutered before he came to live here on the farm, but the surgery must not have been a complete success. He didn't go chasing after the female dogs, but they came to our yard after him. When that happened, he couldn't resist the siren call. I put him up when I knew what was happening, but sometimes he was gone before I knew the girls had come after him. I never knew for sure if any of the pups were his because there were other male dogs around, but one time when there was an American Staffordshire in the neighborhood, I was pretty sure that the one pup she had was Dub's. She wouldn't entertain attentions from any of the other dogs. Another time he went off with a different neighborhood flirt and ended up several miles from home next to a parkway where somebody stopped, gathered him up and turned him in to the humane shelter. It was a holiday weekend and I didn't figure out he was gone until too late to call. He spent the weekend in doggie jail before I could find out they had him and bail him out on Monday. He was happy to be my dog that morning. 

So many stories I could tell about Dub. How he developed an allergy and was tormented by itching in the spring and fall until we had to give him steroids. How he liked to go sleep on the neighbor's porch furniture. How every bed I bought him he slept on for a few days and then attacked like it was a wild animal and spread filling all over the yard. How when he was beginning to get old and tired, he'd go to the middle of the field where he could watch me walking to lie down and wait for me to come back around. How he had to wear one of those collars after he had surgery on his ear. How if he thought he was going to the vet, he just came to the car and climbed right in. Never tried to get in the car any other time. How he was a very good dog. 

In December, he got very sick. I knew he was dying and went out to the garage to check on him on a morning in December thinking I'd have to take him to the vet for that final trip. He wasn't there. He wasn't anywhere. I walked miles on the farm looking for him in every fence row, under every cedar bush, and under buildings and everywhere I could think of. He wasn't anywhere. I was about to decide he'd walked on up to heaven, but then a few days later, the neighbor came over to report he'd found him next to his pond. I should have walked his field instead of mine. So now Dub's buried out by the gate we passed through so often on our walks. You want to outlive your dogs because dogs are only here a short time. But at the same time you remember every one them. Good dogs all. And Dub was a good dog who had a good life here on the farm. 

 

Have you known some good dogs in your life?

A dog doesn't care if you're rich or poor, big or small, young or old. He doesn't care if you're not smart, not popular, not a good joke-teller, not the best athlete, nor the best-looking person. To your dog, you are the greatest, the smartest, the nicest human being who was ever born. You are his friend and protector.  ~ Louis Saban

Remember, you can get your name in the hat to win a copy of my new book, Words Spoken True, by leaving a comment here. This giveaway is just for my blog followers. Each comment on a new post enters your name again. So thanks for reading and I hope you have a great week.

A Good-bye Tribute to Hank and Other Good Dogs

We just got home from helping our daughter-in-law and grandkids bury their dog, Hank. He was 16 years old and my daughter-in-law found him as a stray before she and my son got married. My son is away on business and last night something happened to Hank and he couldn't walk right this morning. Probably a brain tumor or a stroke. So she had to take him to the vet to be put down. The grandkids, ages 8, 6, & 2, have never known life without Hank, so they were very sad. But Hank was a good dog who accepted them into his family with joy when each of them were born and loved them without reservations. So my quotes this week are in honor of good dogs like Hank everywhere.

"Puppies are nature's remedy for feeling unloved." Richard Allan Palm

"Humankind is drawn to dogs because they are so like ourselves - bumbling, affectionate, confused, easily disappointed, eager to be amused, grateful for kindness and the least attention." Pam Brown

"When we leap, we must leap as though the net will appear. A leap in life, however big or small, is an act of commitment with the expectation of success." John O'Hurley from his book It's Okay to Miss the Bed on the First Jump and Other Lessons I Learned from Dogs

And last is my own - "Life is better with a dog who knows you are absolutely, for sure, his human."