Speckinstein.
Rooey. Maise. Spank. Dumb Owee. Hucklesnucks.
On one of my last trail rides thru green hills I looked down at Beck and thought I better take a picture because she won't always be there. I don't always take pix of the dogs because they're like your own feet, they're so much a part of you why would you photo the face that's always looking up at you. I did take a pic of her that day it was near her bday in February.
She never caused a bit of trouble on the trail. She always stayed right with me. Unlike Huck who runs ahead, leaps through everything, scouts the trail and checks back with us, Beck is amongst us, she doesn't leave, she likes to be right next to us, faithful and smart. That one time when she was little she went into the bushes on the haunted path in the woods and yelped and I thought she got in a bear trap like they have those and instead she had awakened a sleeping coyote who she then thought would be fun to play with. She came frolicking out of the woods and the coyote was behind her and my eyes bulged. I had gotten off Dewey (it was just me Dew and Beck in those days) and got her to come back over to me quick and later found out the coyote had taken a swipe at her and made a deep cut on her flank that the vet stitched up later. That was a 500 dollar ride.
Beck has been to the ocean a bunch, in the creek a bunch. We took her to the creek a few weeks ago when it was really rushing cause of all the rain we've had and I was worried she would be washed away. We went to a shallower area and the dogs frolicked and swam and then I had B pick her up on the way home so she wouldn't have to walk the whole way on the street since she has older hips.
Sometimes after a creek or a beach she wouldn't be able to walk for a whole day with those hips.
If you go out in the water at the beach and leave both her and Huck on the blankets on the shore, Becky will go deep into the waves to get you out of there, we'd always have to keep one person on shore because she would want to be with you so much she would do a water rescue and just swim until she got to you. That little earnest face, feet pumping in the water, waves smashing over her, she wasn't gonna leave you. What are you doing out here she would look at me do you not see this danger
Becky says there's no leaving. You stay and then you stay some more. If you're really lucky sometimes they throw you down an egg yolk they didn't eat. That's the bonus of staying. Plus people have warm bodies and fingers that scratch you.
I guess that's why the child in me who has dogs does not understand why any of this ever happens. A dog getting older, a dog having a failing organ, a dog who can't use her body.
Nathan and I in her sickness have been hauling her onto my bed at night where she usually sleeps and this morning we had to hoist her out using blankets as wedge lifts to hold her up and bring her into the living room for the day. To watch Little House On the Prairie and be a couch fixture. So life can feel the same.
I never had a serious job, where I dressed up and spent hours doing other people's work. I worked on movies and then once I had kids I had their hours and as the kids got older I had the horses and the dogs to try and fill up that huge space that love had created and filled. This is a hard space it is the grand canyon. I can't fill even an inch with books and needlepoint and jokes and warm socks and old tv shows. I'm trying pretty hard. The kids' voices are still here, they are actually physically still here too and the guiding is a little harder cause it's more listening than guiding. It's trying to stay out of the way and enlist their ideas to help guide them to what they need or want. Which is hard when you have alot of things to say because you love hearing yourself and how genius you are. Once controlling your blabbering brain and listening to THEM, they are thinking, smart, kind, loving people. Being here in this house paved with dogs horses chickens alzheimer's gramma, it has given them some sort of trampoline of support I hope. We are just making it up.
When we were at the vet a week ago and we sat in the car out front while beck was inside lying there ill and we were supposed to be making the decision for what was best for her it was just me and Barry, like human mortals. All our thinking couldn't save us here, we just tried to make the best decision but sometimes there is no good decision we found out. That's why we sat there so long they came out to get us.
Beck is on the couch. She is still a good trail dog.
I am 1000 percent not sorry I loved a dog or a baby.
