I don’t normally long to share pet stories on the blog, but enough people liked this email and I thought I would just drop this here for archival.
Our dog, Mande, passed on last week. Early in the morning, she didn’t come out of her office (which she graciously shares with me) to go outside as usual so Deb went back to find her. Deb picked her up to carry her to the door but Mande began coughing and it was obvious things were very bad. She was unable to stand up on her own. We let her rest until we could get her to the vet. She was probably in a little pain but mainly she was very short of breath and immobile.
The vet was very gentle and verified our assumption that her time had come. It was a sad, sad thing for us, but we were very glad that if she suffered at all, it was only a short time as far as we could tell.
She remained defiant of time and old age until the end. She would prance a little when it was time to go out, pretending that she was a young pup. She defied the thought that she always needed to go outside to go to the bathroom, choosing occasionally the spacious living room area that had 3 big windows and I guess to her, it was outside.
She remained regal in her view of life, overlooking her vast estate in the back yard, putting up with those other dogs who would come to visit on occasion and invade her kingdom. She let them eat her food and lay in her bed, even though she knew it was a little disrespectful. She was gracious to her subjects even when they ran over her going out the back door.
She allowed various and sundry animals to roam freely in her yard, including baby deer and several bunny rabbits. They would graze as she gazed, and were unafraid when she would come out on the deck for a drink or a little personal time. The royal queen would not harm them.
Mande came to us as a rescued Schnauzer. It seems she had a longing for the open road, bolting for freedom whenever an open door or gate presented itself. It was amazing to us that she would take off and never look back, even though we were her shelter, her food, her safe place. Many of our friends have accidentally left the door open for a moment while saying goodbye, only to spend the next 10 minutes running down the road chasing our little dog.
She never returned on her own. Once a couple of golfers found her on the golf course behind our house. They read her tags, realized her home was close so they got her into the cart and she rode home, proudly sitting in the front seat, displaying for all to see her limo had arrived and she was returning in style.
Most of the time it was phone calls from neighbors .. “We have your dog.” On another occasion, a lady said she opened her car to return home from the clubhouse and Mande jumped in. She suggested we rename her “Gomer”, because she seemed willing to go home with anyone.
But, after 15 years with us (and the 2 or more years before she found us), it seemed time to go, so she did. Sadly, with a few tears, we said goodbye. Long lived the Queen.
That morning I was drinking coffee and looking at her back yard when one of her bunnies (we call her Bobby Bunny) was grazing in the grass and I saw it run quickly from the grass into the shrubs/overgrowth. Almost immediately a hawk swooped down and lit on the bird feeder, disappointed no doubt, narrowly missing a meal. The queen would have been proud that her subject survived…
