Beltane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Planting Moon<\/p>\n
Emma’s excursion yesterday gave her, as things turned out, her last chance to wander on her own, beyond the woods and backyard that have been her home for over fourteen years.\u00a0 She died last night, in her crate.\u00a0 It was probably an arrhythmia that did not convert like the one several weeks ago.<\/p>\n
Emma has been old for a couple of years.\u00a0 I mean bow-legged, wobbly old.\u00a0 Her hearing had diminished and she didn’t eat well.\u00a0 Dogs though, and Emma was no exception, take their infirmities in stride, as part of the way things are.\u00a0 Really, are they ever anything else?<\/p>\n
We got Emma and her sister Bridgit, dead now three years or so, from a breeder who had sought the perfect whippet.\u00a0 Through line breeding, sort of the doggy equivalent of incest.\u00a0 We didn’t know that at the time and were happy to have two new puppies.\u00a0 Iris and Buck, our last whippet pair at that time, had both died.\u00a0 We missed them.<\/p>\n
As they matured, though, Emma and Bridgit were both peculiar, shy and reclusive.\u00a0 Emma, for years, and I mean, like 10 years, wouldn’t allow us to come near enough to pet her.\u00a0 She flinched and ran away.\u00a0 We’ve had dogs always and many dogs so we could see aberrant behavior and not blame ourselves.\u00a0 It was just the way they were.<\/p>\n
Bridgit left us to live with Jon because he needed a companion.\u00a0 In that one-to-one situation Bridgit took the turn toward a normal doggy life, running to you when you came and playing.\u00a0 Emma, though, in a house with sometimes as many 6 dogs, didn’t get there until much later.<\/p>\n
Same of my fondest memories of Emma came when she was 5 or 6.\u00a0 We had a bad storm that toppled a basswood, a giant maybe 60 feet high.\u00a0 The trunk lay where it fell and it happened to land with a clear path on its side to the sun.\u00a0 Emma took to running up that trunk and standing, head erect and surveying the property, maybe 10 feet off the ground.\u00a0 She looked grand.<\/p>\n
The Wolfhound deaths, and I’ve seen 8, are wrenching, difficult because they die between 5 and 8 years old, in what seems like their prime.\u00a0 Emma’s, and Iris’s too, are different.\u00a0 These are deaths of old age, a life run its course.\u00a0 I’m sad, of course, but not heart broken.<\/p>\n
Em was a regal and quiet dog, who kept her own counsel and lived life as she wanted.\u00a0 Would most of us could say the same.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Beltane\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waning Planting Moon Emma’s excursion yesterday gave her, as things turned out, her last chance to wander on her own, beyond the woods and backyard that have been her home for over fourteen years.\u00a0 She died last night, in her crate.\u00a0 It was probably an arrhythmia that did not convert like the one several … Continue reading Emma’s Last Adventure<\/span>