Love it, Jack! Great stories you guys. I'll get them on the permanent site soon. Here's one (a true one) I just wrote yesterday:
PILING UP
“Oh.my.GOD, why is she constantly scratching?" I half-bellered into the phone, "I don’t see any bumps or redness, I’ve given her baths; there are no fleas. The only time she isn’t scratching at herself is when she’s sound asleep. It’s like having a hyperactive 7-year-old with a drum set in the house. Thump-thump-thump-thump-thump – non-stop...wherever she goes. And at night? She sleeps on the foot of my bed and she’ll start in with that locomotive leg routine. Last night it woke me up shaking the bed; I thought we were having an earthquake. Sometimes she gets so carried away with it she moves into my space and is actually kicking me. It’s driving me crazy.”
“It could be an allergy,” said the vet lady on the other end of the phone. “Everybody’s dogs are itching this time of year. Give her 25 mg of Benadryl twice per day and that should help a lot.”
Okay. More medicine. No sweat. She just finished up 2 rounds of antibiotics, coughing pills, and post surgery pain pills, what's one more?
My current work schedule and geographic situation makes it next to impossible to participate in the sport of beagling on any level that justifies keeping a kennel of dogs. So, over the last couple of years I have been out-placing the dogs who could still compete or hunt...one-by-one finding them good homes that would allow them a better quality of life than sitting in my kennel day after day. It’s been hard to say goodbye to them, but I know it will take exactly 2 bacon strips from their new masters and they will forget I ever existed. Beagles are lucky that way.
This is cramping my style a bit, but it’s not like I’m new to having dogs in the house. With the exception of the last 5 years I’ve always had some sort of rescue mutt companion dog in the house, but the purebred competition beagles were out in their fancy kennels, and I was smug in the knowledge that they could survive best that way. Five years ago when I put Sydney, the rat terrier mix down at age 12, I decided no more dogs in the house. It’s been a stress-free five years. So, it was a no-brainer that I struggled with what to do with my single remaining 13-year-old competition beagle, Dolly. All of my other dogs are gone, and by many kennel owners’ standards, Dolly qualified for the “peaceful nap” exit. She was too old to compete, too old to breed, too arthritic to hunt. She also had a mouth full of rotten teeth that were making her sickly, would cost a small fortune to fix, and I have been lifting her into her kennel for the last year because she can no longer jump up into it herself. Why is this a difficult decision?
Even though beagles are pack dogs, and love to pile up on top of each other to sleep, Dolly never cared to share her house. In occasional acts of futility, I would put other dogs in with her, hoping to find a match, and they would invariably end up standing outside on the wire, looking at me all dejected as if to say, “What now? She won’t let me in her house.” She seemed to prefer the solitude, unless of course, she was looking after one of her generous litters of puppies. Dolly was a dutiful mother, even raised another dog's orphaned litter once, but she was always more than ready to wean puppies when they got to be 5-week-old thugs. Still, after the last hunting dog left I sat on the back steps sipping a whiskey and staring at her in her kennel. With nary another dog around to chime in on a decent howl, I wasn’t convinced that she would truly be happy. I certainly wasn’t looking forward to donning coveralls and boots each night to feed and water one dog, and to make sure the heat lamp was functioning. I told myself, “Winter is coming on. Put her down or bring her in, but make a decision.” I decided that her positive attitude and unfettered appetite warranted a commitment from me to do some things that might improve her health and comfort. After all, this old dog and I had been through a lot together over the years. She has been a trooper in the roughest of conditions, and has always given me her personal best; I owed her that much. First thing would be to fix her mouth.
At times I think I made a mistake by bringing her in. Outside hunting dogs are not like home-raised dogs. They stink, they have no manners, they don’t care where they poop, and the garbage can is their personal food ATM. There are some tricks you can teach an old dog and some you can’t. You just have to find work-arounds and hope for compromise. Now that she’s often in the same room with me, I’ve noticed things about her that I didn’t when she was in the kennel. For example, she snores like a husband, and she’s almost totally deaf now. My work-around for communication is to use a lot of arm waving, pointing, and gesturing. I look like the ground crew at Indianapolis International, guiding a 747 to the gate. During the day while I’m at work, I contain her to the kitchen. Those puppy training pee pads are next to the back door and she seems to understand that’s where I want her to go. So every night I pick them up and mop the area. And now that her almost toothless mouth is healthy, and her old joints are enjoying the warmth of the house and its softer surfaces, she has an extra spring to her step, a happier swing to her tail, and her eyes are still fairly clear and bright. Good grief…she may live for a few more years. I hope I can keep this up.
Sometimes I turn around from my computer and look at her red and white freckled self, sleeping in what used to be my favorite movie chair, and I’m amazed. Considering the amount of hair that’s all over the house now, this dog should be bald. But besides that, I’m thinking back to years before. "Exasperating" is probably a good word to describe Dolly as a young hound. She was too quick with the mouth, excitable - very high-octane, a downright hot mess at times. She could screw up a pack in 2 minutes flat. The ex, who I shall hereto forth refer to as S4B (you can guess what that stands for), wanted to get rid of her, but I sensed something different about this dog. She had almost a human quality to her, more intelligent than the average bear. And then there was that crazy-ass red-ticked coat that fascinated me. There were many things you didn’t need to teach Dolly because…she just knew. You could tell in her eyes that she understood the game. She had a certain sentience about her, and at age 2, I felt she needed more time; it was too soon to make a cut. So, I dug my heels in stubbornly and insisted she stay in our kennel. She had the the energy and personality of a Border Collie working an agility course, and that amused me to no end.
After Dolly's first litter at age 3, a light switch flipped on. All of her good qualities started to manifest themselves into a mature, organized style of running, and she became a serious contender in the field and in show. Within the year she had earned her Rabbit Champion and Grand Bench Champion titles, (not to mention and I got to say “neener-neener” to S4B). She was a delight to gun over and would handle for a child. Dolly became the foundation bitch for our line of dogs, and was the measuring stick by which we tested the mettle of the up and coming. She had all of her litters with me in attendance, watching over her. Without prompting, she learned to sit up and beg for whatever you were eating. An admirable trait for a dog. She trained many a pup in the field, and even led a couple of night-time “jail-breaks” that resulted in the terrorization of the neighborhood yard bunnies by half of our pack. Porch lights coming on everywhere, we scrambled to catch the hounds as they threaded in between the houses in full cry. Ever try to run when you're laughing? I was always so very proud of her – even during those embarrassing moments, so when the marriage went by the wayside in 2005, I brought Dolly and a few others into my modest new camp. She was retired from competition. She was my Champion and I'd always been hers; and I felt she would be better off with me.
Seeing her now, curled up in the papasan chair, the distinctive pattern of her coat which is burned into my memory, takes me back to pieces of our history together that evoke the gamut of emotions. I can see her stand out from a distance – most often leading the pack, chasing the hair off a rabbit, the gallery awestruck by her urgent, machine gun war chant, and the other dogs just hoping to keep up. I envision her standing nicely on the bench, on her toes and posed to perfection, as still as a statue…except for the very tip of her tail. Dolly at her best behavior couldn’t totally contain her enthusiasm. As the bench judge would approach her, she wouldn’t move a whisker, but she would acknowledge him by wagging the last 2 inches of her tail. I think this may have endeared her into a blue ribbon or two.
Some of the memories are downright frightening to recall. I remember a time when she was running a field trial in the strip mines of Southern Indiana and we thought we’d lost her. This before tracking collars were commonplace. She and another dog split from the pack and didn’t come in at the end of the cast. I was worried sick because the terrain down there looks the same 360 degrees for miles, and the wildlife abounds. You lose a dog down there and you can only pray they show up at a farmer's house one day with their collar and name tag intact. A search party was later formed by all the beaglers in our club, and that evening after dark we found the other dog killed on Hwy 57. We put her in the truck; it would be some sad news to deliver to her owner. Dolly was nowhere in sight. My heart sank. I just knew a coyote had gotten her...or something. Suddenly, I heard the rapid roll of her machine gun mouth not too far off. She had made it across Hwy 57 and was running a poor rabbit through a ditch full of water and all around a junk pile next to the road. There were just no words…
Fast forward nine years and now this old, toothless, itchy, stinky, deaf dog is in my chair, under my feet, and sprawled all over the foot of my bed. For the most part she’s alert and tuned in, but sometimes she will startle in her sleep, bolting upright and she will look at me with momentary confusion. I pat her head and then she’s instantly all good. And sometimes in the middle of the night, when I’m in and out of sleep, I can feel that she has carefully army-crawled her way up next to me, using my hip as a pillow. Or sometimes she crawls all the way up to my pillow – her body alongside mine, her warm breath on my cheek. This dog, who for 13 years refused to share her kennel and pile up with other dogs, has decided she will pile up with me. What a pain in the ass. I love her.
