Seven Years Now

Photo copyright Wings, 2021; all rights reserved.

It's impossible.  It cannot be seven years now since we lost our big guy, the one in the foreground there. But a quick search of prior posts proves that it's true. [That photo was taken in April of 2011, on the day we buried their little (but older) sister Dom, and they were both in mourning.]

Major was the one I failed, terribly and utterly, and no, I do not want argument from anyone about it, because I know the truth of it. He had developed cancer (as, it would turn out, would all of his adoptive siblings, dogs and horses both, because we have a large and deadly animal cancer cluster in this area, maybe environmental contaminants from the old moly mine, or maybe from what they've been doing up at the Ski Valley). He had had such a hard life before he came to us, and all we wanted was to give him whatever years he had left in comfort (and that was before the cancer). 

He had been abused, neglected, starved and abandoned, apparently left tied out on a chain in the middle of the summer monsoons, which are terrifying even to humans; how much more for a young dog? Whomever had him first also cropped his tail badly, ripped off his dewclaws, and just generally set him up for a lifetime of pain and fear. He wound up at the shelter where my parents lived, then with them, and then with us when it became clear my mom couldn't handle him anymore. By then his insulin resistance had kicked in and he was overweight, hip joints in terrible pain, and even thought the car I drove then was fairly low to the ground, I still had to pick up all 125 pounds of him and lift him into the back to bring him here, because he couldn't climb even that foot or two for himself.

And then he got here.

Twenty-five fenced acres to roam at whim and will, absolutely fascinating smells everywhere for a scent hound, and good healthy food and fresh water and a safe place to sleep indoors for the rest of his life. He was in heaven. He dropped 25 pounds in the space of a couple of months, and in short order was running, jumping, patrolling all the way around the fenceline every day, hips apparently fully healed. So up until his last months, we were at least able to give him a good life. Those final days were complicated by a bitterly cold winter and the fact that we no longer had the house and were crowded into that toxic tin can, with no funds for continual vet visits, and we had to do what we could for him ourselves. It was hard. So hard. But we loved him, and we had made him that promise. You know the one.

Major was a wigglebutt when he was happy, not enough tail to wag effectively so he just wagged his whole back end. He was also scared far too much of the time, effects from his early years of trauma and abuse. But he also lived up to his name (not one we hung on him, by the way, but it was what he knew) when it counted: In the spring of 2009, then year-old pups Raven and She-Wolf came across a prairie rattler in the south hayfield, thinking they could play with it. Major instinctively knew better and threw himself between them and it; I watched it all unfold as I was racing across the field myself. He grabbed it, bit down hard, and threw it, sustaining a snakebite on his muzzle. I couldn't reach Wings, who was gone with the truck, and so I had to resort to the old suck-and-spit routine on a dog's muzzle between each effort to dial. Fortunately, I had my peoples' own traditional remedy for just such an eventuality, and after I had done what I could, I made a poultice, plastered it onto his muzzle, and kept him quiet until Wings got home and we could get him to the vet for Sunday emergency care. Two vets came in, and both were shocked to see that there was no swelling, no redness, nothing; I had to search through his whiskers and fur for the fang-marks to show them where he'd been bitten. They concluded that a half-course of anti-venin (hideously expensive even at that) would be sufficient, so that's what we did, and was enough.

I have never forgotten that moment when our scaredy-boy set aside all thought for himself to protect the younger ones. It showed a strength that normally wasn't visible to anyone on the outside, and I was so proud of him that day. We were always proud of him, of course; he was always a Good Boy. And so today, at 12:30 (the time that he left us seven years ago) I took some water and cedar and tobacco to his resting place, as I always do for the ones with four legs and feathers and no lesser spirits than humans have . . . and found Wings already there, putting out a little of the food he loved so much in life, kibble, wet food, a little raw meat that was his favorite thing in the world.

We love you, Major. We will always feed your spirit.

 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2021; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner. 

Major. It's Been Six Years.

Photo copyright Wings 2020; all rights reserved.

Major. It's been six years.

Six years yesterday, to be exact, and once again, I failed him. I don't know why, other than the fact that this time of year is invariably fraught with too many stresses and far too much physical pain, and I can have it in my head on the first or second and still forget by 12:30 on the third, because my brain no longer works and things that I once would never have failed to remember now vanish in a puff of pain and smoke.

Our Big Guy has been gone six years yesterday, and that's as many years that he was with us, and that was more than we ever could have expected. He had belonged to my parents, who rescued him from the local shelter, and it was a rescue indeed. His earlier years were so saturated with trauma that it had affected his physical health, and give his enormous size and bad hips to go with it, we didn't think he would have long. Bringing him to live with us was a shot at giving him a comfortable place for his final days.

Except . . . six years. Here, he found his home, and this place healed him, at least until it didn't, and that was cancer like nearly all the others, too. the same place that gave him life would take it, but in the meantime it healed his hips and gave him space to run and and allowed him several years' worth of the good life that he probably thought would never be his.

That's him with Griffin, also gone now these nearly four full years, and that was taken after we had all said goodbye to their sister in 2014. The dogs mourned as they lived, together.

He seems to live on again, suddenly, in Chinook — they both do. She has Griffin's beautiful brindle coloring and intensely intelligent mind, but the body and ears and muzzle are all Major. Her eyes fall somewhere between the two. I look at her, and I see the Big Guy's face, the WiggleButt, the one who never should have made it but defied all the odds anyway. The one I failed, and failed again yesterday.

And so now, it is snowing. Windy. Bitterly cold. And I will take the cedar and the tobacco and the fresh water, and I will lay them on his resting place, because that what we do, what Wings and I have always done for these sweet generous spirits who gave us so much more than humans ever do. And I will tell him I'm sorry, once again . . . and remember him at his happiest and most brave, on patrol around the fenceline, hunting prairie dogs on the land, saving his younger siblings from a prairie rattler. Like his new little sister, he had no start n life, no socialization but plenty of abuse and neglect, but he was a good dog and a brave spirit. 

We love you, Major. You found your home, and you're in our hearts every day.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2020; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Five years for our big guy.

Photo copyright Wings, 2019; all rights reserved.

The five-year point came about 12:30 this afternoon: Major, who, were he still with us, would have hit (or nearly so) the improbable age of 20. As it was, even hitting 15 was not merely improbable; in his case, it was downright miraculous, given his size and the terrible start he was given in life.

We didn't choose his name; that came from Mom and Dad, and while we would have given him something far more fitting, by the time he came to Wings and me, the name was firmly ingrained. Who knows what it was before, or even whether he had a name; what we do know is that he suffered terrible abuse and neglect.

When he came up here, we thought he probably didn't have more than a couple of years. Early starvation led to metabolic syndrome, and massive weight gain; his hips were bad, and he could barely haul himself into the back of my old low car, even with help. A few months here, and he was a new dog: slender, muscled, active, always doing his morning patrol of the land, always ready to eat the healthy food we made sure he got.

Even so, I failed him. He developed cancer, too; as one of our vets puts it, everyone who lives long enough will eventually get it, and Major was no exception. As with the others, though, the toxicity of that topical treatment undoubtedly played a role, and I will never forgive myself for that, or for failing him thereafter. And no, it's not up for debate, so no need to comment on it. Even so, he had a far better life here than he would have had otherwise (a life, period; his earlier situation was so dire that he would not have survived long enough to come to stay with us in the first place). But here, he had all the healthy food and clean water he needed, plus twenty-five acres for roaming, patrolling, chasing prairie dogs (and, despite his bulk and age, catching them fairly regularly), and green grass and abundant shade for resting. He had warmth in the winter, safety at night, and shelter from the storms that terrified him so. Most of all, he had a life free of abuse and filled with love — from us, and from all his adopted sibs, like Griffin up there with him in the photo, resting his chin on Major's back. If memory serves, that was a moment of shared grief, right after we lost Dom in 2011. he also had a dog coat from his aunt, and he was so proud of it that I could rarely get it fastened before he took off in it. Somewhere, there's a photo of him with it half off him, Raven trailing behind indignantly because he didn't have one.

This is a hard one. It's made all the more so by the knowledge that Raven will be joining him before too much more time passes, and from the same disease. But we have always tried to give them everything, even now: At the appointed time, I took him some cedar and tobacco, gave him a little smoke; Wings is setting aside a little raw elk for him, and we'll take that and some water to his resting place, too. He lies below the big blue spruce on the northwest side, between Griffin and Lilith, and the spruce? It's thriving.

We love you, Big Guy. You're always in our hearts.



All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2019; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

A brave dog after all: Major, the warrior, four years on.

Photo copyright Wings, 2018; all rights reserved.

That's still one of my favorite pictures of the two of them. Both have left us now, Griffin almost two years ago and Major, in the foreground, just over four years ago.

It's been a day for guilt.

I bolted awake just after five this morning, somehow realizing in my sleep that I'd missed Major's anniversary date, which was February 3rd, at around 12:30 PM. I can put it down to a whole host of reasons, most of which have to do with my health and money and stress levels right now, and also the fact that on the third, we had someone working over here, which always disrupts my day, but the fact of the matter is, I'd gotten my wires crossed and was thinking March 3rd instead. And then, by the time Wings got his own stuff under way and I remembered to check the time, it was 12:36, and so I was even late at being late. But I took some cedar and tobacco out to him, and a doggy treat, too, and I tried to make up for it in some small way.

It was my parents who named him Major; the shelter had called him Gregory, heaven knows why, and Dad wanted to name him Shep, after the old song that is, of course, nothing but heartbreak and heaven knows why that, either, but what apparently stuck was Major. If we'd had anything to do with it, we'd probably have named him Warrior, but the poor guy had had enough disruption in his life already. He was, in some ways, anything but — a survivor of severe abuse and neglect and starvation, with equally severe PTSD and afraid of so, so many things . . . and yet, when the puppies (that would be She-Wolf and Raven, who are now ten), tangled with a prairie rattler, he jumped in between them to try to kill it. He got bitten for his trouble, I did the suck-and-spit routine while waiting for Wings to come home and then applied a traditional medicine that took all the inflammation out and left him needing only a half-course of anti-venin — and he got the rattler. It was dead when we went to find it, courtesy of Major's aging teeth. And I suppose that's the essence of the warrior, at least in our way: You put aside your greatest, most fundamental fears to defend those more vulnerable.

So our Big Guy was a brave dog after all.

We love you, Major. We miss you and your great big warrior heart. 




All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2018; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Our big guy, two and a half days late and three years later.

Photo copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved.

I'm horrible right now. I miss everything; I drop more balls than were in the air to start with.

I forget everything under the sun.

And on Friday, I forgot that it was the third anniversary of the day Major left us.

It wasn't that I forgot completely; he's been on my mind again lately. But somehow, I think my exhausted brain pushed February into March. It was complicated by everything that was going on at the appointed time on Friday: Wings canceling a last-minute appointment elsewhere; waiting for the vendor to arrive with the doors and getting them unloaded safely. My mind is always on twenty things at once, and with my current pain levels, I'm doing nothing well, or even right.

So tonight, I gave him a little tobacco and sweetgrass; tomorrow, i'll take him some cedar and burn it for him. He was a big man, one who exceeded all expectations and far outlasted anything anyone every thought he would do, and he was so proud of his coat that he'd never sit still long enough for me to fasten it, hence the look of the photo. But he was a sweet boy, and a loving one, and tonight I am terribly guilty. But he is no longer in pain, and he is free of the cancer that wracked his body at the end.

Please forgive me, Major; I'm sorry that I'm so forgetful. We miss you, and we love you, Big Guy.


All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2017; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Two Years of Hunting in the Other World

Photo copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved.

Update: At the appointed time, I went to put a little cedar on his resting place . . . and was stopped in my tracks. It had snowed so much overnight that it completely covered all of the graves in that plot, so deeply and thoroughly that it was impossible to tell where they were, except from memory. I stepped into the area between spruce and fence, about where I thought it should be. It was the only area marked by tracks — recent ones, after the snow had, for all practical purposes, stopped this morning. They were nearly impossible to decipher; two roundish indented circles about the size of a very large horse's hoof, conjoined at the center. Only two tiny lines extending from their southern edge gave it away: Apparently, the conjoined circles were bunny-butt tracks. Oddly, the point where they joined appeared to be at the head of exactly the right place. I took a chance, dug down into the snow, and promptly hit the stone marking Major's grave. I don't know how the rabbit knew, but then, they're not usually around in the morning anyway. Maybe it was a spirit rabbit, one with whom he's engaged on a joyous hunt over on the other side.

It was two years ago today, just after 1:00 PM, that we said goodbye to our Big Guy. 

His name was Major (not a name we ever would have given him), also known as Big Guy and Wigglebutt. His previous abusers had cropped his tail (and mangled the job), among other things, and so when he wagged for treats, his whole butt tried to do the twist. He lived for those treats, for food, for the chance to lick the inside of Wings's coffee cup, for a soft warm place to sleep, for his coat. He loved that coat so much that he would never stand still long enough for me to fasten the velcro. He pranced in it, high-stepping like a gait horse.

He had a hard life before he came to us: abused, neglected, dew claws torn off, left chained out in monsoonal storms, starved until he was all bones. My parents adopted him, hoping for some help for Dad's Parkinson's; a few years later, he got to be too much to handle. He'd fling himself over the six-foot stockade fence by making a run at the adjoining four-foot chain-link fence on the side, springing off it, and vaulting himself onto the top of the wooden palisade, then jump off and go running. He hunted squirrels like a champ, and had an unfortunate tendency to regard the neighborhood's stray cats as simply more squirrels.

His early starvation meant metabolic problems and bad hips, and by the time we brought him up here, he couldn't even climb into the back seat of my relatively low-set car without me half-lifting him in. A few weeks here changed all that: Proper nutrition combined with 25 acres to run turned him into a much younger dog. He patrolled the perimeter every day, up to the end. He was still terrified of weather, and of too many other things, but he outlived all expectations for a dog of his enormous size, forget one with a past as bad as his. As nearly as anyone could peg his age, he was just about fifteen when he left us, and that's a good five years beyond what anyone expected. His last few months were rough; he was battling cancer, and we should have made the decision sooner than we did. It's hard to know what the appointed day is, especially when he still showed such joy in having a Milk-Bone. I failed him.

He finally has a soft place to sleep, with two of his sisters, always protected from the thunder and the storm, never cold now, no longer in pain. He's beneath the big blue spruce by the garden, where the wild strawberries grow. Now, the mighty hunter can chase the squirrels of his dreams, hunt prairie dogs, even reprise his saving of the puppies from a prairie rattler (yes, he got got, and I had to do the suck-and-spit on a dog's muzzle) — and now, nobody gets hurt.

We love you, Big Guy. Hunt well.

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Aji, 2016; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.

Big Guy

Photo copyright Aji, 2015; all rights reserved.

It was one year ago today that we lost our big guy.

His name was Major, not chosen by us. He'd had a very hard early life, and as is so often the case with abused spirits, that made even his later life harder than it should have had to be.

My parents adopted him from the local shelter years ago, at my suggestion. The hope was to find a dog that could help my father manage his Parkinson's (and, I hoped, the worsening depression that accompanied it). They couldn't seem to find one that they liked, and so I, living all the way across the country at that time, went online, found their local shelter's Web site, and promptly found a hound mix that needed a home. 

The shelter's vets had pegged his age at four and a half (probably accurate), and the staff had named him "Gregory" (ridiculous). My parents tried out a variety of names on him, intending initially to call him Shep (my father's choice, and a dog name I always hated because when I was a kid, he used to sing that old song about the dying dog and make me cry). Finally, somehow, they tried "Major," and he responded to the sounds (more, anyway, than to any of their other attempts), so that's what his name became. When he came to us here, we called him that mostly when we needed to get his attention; normally, he was "Big Guy" or some variant thereof.