The Dog With 9 Lives: A Fond Farewell

Yesterday our dear family pet, Rosie, went back to Dog Heaven.

She was small even for a Miniature Dachshund, and her recent illness made her slighter still, but I cried myself to sleep last night to think I would never see that little bundle of fur again, chuckling intermittently at memories of our 14-year friendship as they bubbled into mind.

It seems strange to call her a pet, as she declared herself a family member at every opportunity. She had the stature of a young piglet, but either she did not realise the fact, or did not think it relevant. To her I’m sure she was not even a dog, but just a being like anyone else, it’s just that beings happen to come in all sorts of (immaterial) shapes and sizes.

When invited to play, by any species, she offered a look of acute disdain. Even in her childhood, games were far too puerile for her. There seemed always a lot to do in that little head, as if she bore a great responsibility, or yearned to solve an equation but only lacked the hands with which to hold chalk to a board. Often she would stare piercingly into one’s eyes and start to yowl, increasing in scale and fervour, almost shaping her lips into words, then growing gruff and exasperated that we did not understand the thing she urgently needed to explain.

Her stoicism championed her good qualities. She bore all pain silently, and recovered from even the severest peril immediately. She came back from so many scrapes and illnesses, we often thought she would outlive us all. Her leaving us at last is thus quite astonishing; one final reminder to us that she will do just as she pleases, and not what we dare to expect of her.

Her most famous recovery was when another dog chased her off a 300-foot Devonshire cliff. Hours later the coast guard went down on a rope. There she was amongst the rocks by the incoming tide, unconscious, assumed dead. Back at the top he opened the little bag with its limp cargo, but she duly thrust out her head, yelling and clamouring as if she had been robbed. We conjectured that she was in fact some sort of barking cat. That would account for her size and her nonchalance, as well as the nine or more lives she seemed to have spent up to that point.

To be fair she was a little wary of larger dogs (perhaps more so after the Cliff Incident), but would not let them get away without a reminder of exactly with whom they were sharing the road. She would brace her head down and trot past, often ducking behind our lumbering Retriever, then when the larger dog had passed (and most were larger), she would let out a steady stream of expletives in its direction. The target would gape back, completely disarmed, seemingly stunned out of its senses that such bravado could be delivered from so close to the ground.

I first saw her over the garden gate. There she was in the middle of the lawn, the size of a guinea pig, but with the presence and command of a grown Doberman. She was all puffed out chest, stocky shoulders, ears akimbo (and curled out at the ends like a 60s bob), liquid black eyes, marching up to me with not an inch of submissiveness or eagerness to please, but only “Behold. I am Rosie.” For me that first glimpse summed up her whole adorably outrageous existence, and that’s how I’ll remember her.

I am forever, forever thankful for the laughs she brought and the affection she showed. One had to learn her language to know what counted for affection (a sharp nip on the nose with a blast of camel breath, for example), but once her respect was earned, affection always followed, as did her loyalty.

More on my love of dogs at SriChinmoyCentre.org:

• Inspirational Dogs
• Savernake
• The Guide Dog and her Man

My First Meme

Shaggy Muses