Echo, Echo

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