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Last Updated: Dec 12, 2008 - 4:54:39 PM |
This past week has been a rough one. At some point early last week, my oldest border collie stopped coming out from under my bed. I have an old antique bed that sits high off the floor. Since I’m female, I dress my bed up in frilly bed skirts, and these make it pretty nice and den-like under there. (I only assume this is why the dogs like it so much, since I’m a human and prefer the mattress) Marengo (the dog) had, almost from the day I brought her home, declared that space as hers. She slept under there, she hid under there if I wanted her to do something she didn’t think she needed to do, and she kept her toys under there (until Rave moved in and toys scattered).
It wasn’t completely unusual for her to stay under there for great lengths of time. In fact, this past year she started to skip some of the “outsides”, most likely because her poor arthritic joints didn’t want to navigate the 25 steps it takes to get to ground level. Sometimes she’d come out from under the bed when I’d ask my usual “Anyone want to go out?” and stand in the bedroom, peering out through the doorways to the back of the house appearing as though she was contemplating the issue, but she usually changed her mind and went back under the bed. (It might be that she just liked to watch the spectacle of racing, tumbling legs all trying to get out the screen door first.)
Then last Monday night I realized she hadn’t been outside for nearly 24 hours. As far as I knew, she hadn’t had any water for 24 hours either, and I was straining to remember the last time she’d actually eaten. I even tried to toss a beef-flavored doggy pain pill into her lair, but she just mouthed it a little and spit it back out. Then Tuck ran under the bed and ate it. That darn Tuck.
I’ve been working a temporary job in Iowa City, so after once again unsuccessfully trying to coax her out to eat the next morning (now more than 24 hours had passed), I left my mom (who comes daily to let them relieve their bladders while I’m gone) a note explaining if Marengo should come out, she should trap her in the utility room with the baby gate and I headed off for my commute. I wasn’t happy about it, but had to go. In my heart, I knew she was dying.
Marengo was my first border collie. She was stunningly beautiful, a literal traffic-stopper, and cunningly smart. She was simultaneously the bane of my existence and the love of my life. All the books and articles I’d read about the breed before I got her warned of this. The breed needs to work. They are bred for their intelligence; therefore they make horrible house pets. All of it was the same. I ignored the advice and convinced myself it would be different for me. After all, I loved a challenge, and I didn’t want a sloth, I wanted a companion. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
Susie Turnbull Photo
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Smart was an understatement for this girl. She had the reasoning skills of an elementary student and the stubbornness of a hormone-fuelled teenage human. If I asked her to do something, she stopped in her tracks and stared at me. I could almost hear her brain thinking “What’s in it for me?” I brought her home and she chewed my shoes, I got her to stop chewing the shoes, and she pulled the laces out and ate them instead. I got her to stop eating the laces, and she decided to leave one of my shoes in the middle of the living room every day. Unchewed. Unmarred. I took it as a message. “See what I could have done but didn’t?” because if I played with her in the morning before I left the house, the shoe wasn’t there when I came home.
I’m still not sure who trained who. I tend to think it was mutual. We learned to compromise. Sometimes Marengo learned there was no compromise. Sometimes I just gave up. I have hundreds of stories like this. Thirteen years worth. She wasn’t a dog who was tricked into anything.
She made friends wherever she went. From Baltimore to Maine, or Iowa, or Kansas City or anywhere between, people went out of their way to greet her. She was well-travelled and well-socialized. I have friends who are grieving for her almost as much as I am.
Last Tuesday, after a frantic phone call to my mom where I found out Marengo once again couldn’t walk, and a sorrowful phone call to my vet’s office where they convinced me I had to bring her in sooner rather than later, I left work early. With help, I got her out from under the bed and drove her to Williamsburg, where I decided it was time to let her go. Her brain had once again rebelled—her nervous system compromised whether by tumor, or stroke. Arthritic joints, hip dysplasia—she didn’t need to be in pain any longer. It was the hardest decision of my life, but Marengo, in usual fashion, was dignified and stoic. She was my friend. She was my family. To say she will be missed is an understatement.
© Copyright 2008 by The East Iowa Herald
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