A Good Dog

Dear Susan,

You may not remember my family, but you might remember our dog. She was once your dog, on the periphery of life at your llama farm near Leavenworth, Kansas.

I visited with my two small kids back in November 1996. "So you want a llama?" you asked. No, just stopped by to look and pet. I grew up in Central Oregon and love llamas. "How about a dog?" you said, jerking your head towards a sweet, timid mutt lurking by the barn.

You had found her on your twenty acres, thin and desperate, with nine nursing puppies, but no collar. Dumped probably. For being pregnant? For being gun-shy? We'll never know. But you fed her and gave her shelter in the barn. When it was time, you found homes for all nine of the pups. But you said you didn't need another dog. You had corgis in the house and a few hunting dogs already. Thanks, but no thanks, I said.

A month passed. Our miniature dachshund, Russell, needed a friend. I called you and asked if you still had that mama dog. "Sure, come on by."

I loaded up the car with the two tow-headed children, my husband and Russell. My husband wanted assurances that this was a small dog. She seemed small in my memory, but I hadn't been paying too much attention. I had been there for the llamas.

She was bigger than I remembered, about 45 pounds. But it was her nature to be sweet and nurturing. She never scared the kids, never pushed them over, always allowed herself to be the brunt of their physicality. She was a great dog for kids.

Our veterinarian proclaimed her healthy and about three and half years old. What breed was she? No one could ever tell us, though “bird-dog” was a favorite and sometimes even “beagle-mix” based on her coloring. We had her spayed right away—after all, this dog had the potential to give birth to a litter of NINE.

Russell took to her immediately--and she to him. He was full grown, but still puppy-sized and we always imagined that she considered herself his mother. They became inseparable. We named her Shasta--after the soda pop, not the mountain--and always out of our mouths it was "RussellandShasta," like they were a unit. They shared a food dish and a dog house, and, unlike the human siblings in the family, rarely squabbled.

Since the dachshund was my daughter's "puppy," Shasta belonged to the boy. He’s nearly fourteen now, and doesn’t remember a time when we didn’t have her. As a toddler, he would drape himself over her strong back or curl up with her, spine to spine.

She was a brave dog and a good guardian. She was quick to bark at strangers, and disliked crowds. But for her family and friends, she had a ready smile and a powerful wag of her stiff, stumpy tail. Loud noises scared her—particularly fireworks—so every Independence Day holiday was a challenge.

Once the fabled Kansas wind blew open the gate to our backyard and the dogs escaped. Russell, with his short legs, didn’t get very far. But Shasta was fast—and frightened. We couldn’t find her anywhere, but that night I left a message on the phone at the humane society describing her. They called the next morning. A dog fitting her description had been hit by a car on Iowa Street and was now recovering at a local animal hospital. Thanks to Bill and Mary Wigglesworth, who had rescued her from the middle of the street and taken her to their vet, Shasta came through that ordeal with only scrapes and bruises.

We moved away from Kansas in 2002, and took the dogs with us, of course. The kids, who had been so small when we got Shasta, soon were teenagers. And both dogs became gray with age.

Russell died just before his twelfth birthday in May 2007 and I thought that Shasta surely wouldn’t go on without him. But her resilience surprised us. We moved her doghouse to the front yard, so she could be closer to her people and she began sleeping inside at night. She had never before been interested in being inside the house, but warmth and companionship were convincing draws. She was content to sleep late in the mornings, only rousing herself from bed with difficulty. She preferred that her kibble be softened with water before she ate it.

Arlo, another miniature dachshund, joined our household this summer. At first he was too boisterous, too wild, too poorly mannered for our old dog. But after a month or so she came to like him, although never with the steadfast devotion she had shared with Russell. She appreciated that we insisted the puppy give her space—her own bed, her own bowl. She was very much like an old grandma, who enjoys small doses of the grandkids, even as it exhausts her and makes her a little crotchety.

This Friday she wouldn’t leave the doghouse to come inside for the night. Saturday and Sunday, she heaved herself stiffly from one patch of sunshine to another, but wouldn’t eat and would barely lap at some water placed below her snout. And this morning she was gone.

While both my husband and I had dogs when we were kids, we didn’t have them for more than a few years at a time. Circumstances changed and the dogs were given away. Or they died, sometimes from age, sometimes under the wheels of a car. These two dogs, Russell and Shasta, spent a dozen years as part of our family. Today seems like the end of an era—the passing, not just of a couple of dogs, but of my kids’ childhoods. They’ll soon be off to college and their own lives. And Arlo, the new puppy, was meant to be more my dog than theirs. It’s bittersweet, this passage of time.

So, Susan, nearly twelve years after the fact, let me thank you with all my heart for letting Shasta be a part of my life, our lives. She was a good dog. And we were all better humans for sharing her.

Shasta
1993? – September 29, 2008