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| About to exit our west gate in the woods - running free. |
An open
letter to a master dog trainer:
Bruce,
Thanks again
for training us to train what you called an “alpha-active pointy-eared bitch.”
Echo has become the great dog she was born to be and is the sweetest German
shepherd we’ve ever known. Not a day goes by without her walking over to
snuggle her head into our laps and have her ears scratched. We love her – thanks
for that, too. It would not have worked out that way without your guidance.
There’s bad
news – terribly bad. Echo’s been off her food a bit, losing a little weight
maybe, stopped laying on her side to sleep, and her breathing sometimes sounded
a little raspy. Then one afternoon, running up the bank by the creek, Echo lost consciousness,
tipped over like she was dead. That was a Saturday. We made a vet appointment
for first thing Monday morning.
You’d have
been proud of Echo. We park at the vet’s, and I have her “heel” and “sit” outside
so that Echo knows she’s working. We “heel” into a waiting room full of
misbehaving dogs. Echo sticks to my side as we enter and we walk together to
the scale where I turn a sharp right. Echo turns with me, stepping onto the
scale. “Echo, sit!” Echo sits on the scale, her back to the yapping and barking.
Seventy pounds – Echo has lost weight.
“Echo, heel.”
I spin away from the scale and march to the desk to check in. Echo glances at a
Lab that wants to sniff noses (or something), but she turns right with me and
sits on command with her back to the big black fella with the grizzled muzzle.
I see her scan the room out of the corner of my eye. A fat cocker spaniel pulls
on his leash, trying to get to Echo. Echo sits at alert but doesn’t make a
move.
We check in.
“Heel.” I turn left this time. Echo scoots backward to clear room for me, and
together we stride across the room to the last empty corner. The cocker lunges
as we pass and a mutt that looks half Chihuahua rushes us yapping and snarling.
Echo doesn’t flinch. I turn right on my heel and spin back to face the room. “Sit!”
Echo turns with me and lands sitting, ears up, eyes bright, as alert as only a
German shepherd can be. I reach down and pat her chest. “Good girl, Echo.
The guy
pulling back on the choking cocker says, “That’s a beautiful dog you got.”
I smile and
nod.
The Chihuahua
owner scoops her shivering mutt up and sits back in her chair. “He’s sure well
behaved.”
I nod. “We’re
still working with her.”
I stand in
the corner. Echo sits. We wait for a spell until we’re called.
“Echo, heel.”
We walk across the room as one.
A vet-tech
reaches for the leash. “I’ll take her.”
Echo looks
over her shoulder as the vet-tech leads her into the back.
“Be a good
girl, Echo.”
X-rays show
a greatly enlarged heart and fluid on Echo’s lungs. Together the swollen organs
push her esophagus up against her spine – the raspy breathing and difficulty
eating and laying down. They don’t do a planned EKG, fearing that sedation will
kill her.
Meds for a
week clear Echo’s lungs and the next Monday we go back for an EKG. The heart is
as bad as feared – 50% too large and barely functioning. The Vet talks about
when to put Echo down and gives her two years at the outside. Echo could drop
dead any minute.
We keep
tight to a drug regimen and restrict her activity for a week, but this is a dog
born to run, a powerful, athletic dog with a motor stuck in high gear. Echo is
a dog that locked eyes with a mountain lion at 50 feet, and, when the lion
broke and ran, chased that cat up a steep slope of loose, snow-covered rock. I
tracked the pair. The cat took twelve to twenty-foot bounds up the sheer hillside.
Echo made ten to fifteen-foot bounds, so, as I marveled at the trails in the
snow, I was hopeful she would not close with the lion, hopeful I’d see her
alive again.
Yesterday, Mary
and I walked with Echo up the creek and turned her loose so she could run free.
We will not ask her not to live the life she has left. Her great grin and the
sparkle in her eyes as she flew the swollen creek in one bound told us it’s the
right thing to do. Echo will get to live as much as possible until living kills
her. Echo is too great a dog to ask her for less.
Thanks for
that great dog, Bruce.
Forever in
your debt – Mary, Mark, and Echo
