People always say, “You’ll know when it is time.” Sometimes that is true. But sometimes it’s hard to tell. This has been one of those times. Having lived through the horrendous experience of our old deerhound Magic fracturing his leg due to a previously undiagnosed osteosarcoma, I want very badly to spare Queen that awful… Continue reading The Vigil
Tag: Scottish Deerhound
Another Dog, Same Breed, As Soon as Possible
“Hark to Beaumont. Softly, Beaumont, mon amy. Oyez à Beaumont the valiant. Swef, le douce Beaumont, swef, swef.” Beaumont licked his hand but could not wag his tail.” T.H. White, “The Once and Future King”. For the past couple of years, my life has been pretty easy. I… Continue reading Another Dog, Same Breed, As Soon as Possible
The View From Here
For Mrs. Shirley Wiley Last Saturday I suddenly found myself flat on my back on our gravel driveway. The events leading up to this are all too familiar to my fellow deerhound owners—sometimes even walking with bent knees doesn’t work if you don’t see it coming—“it” in this instance being an 85 pound seven… Continue reading The View From Here
Past Lives
It’s been a tough year for me and my animals–we lost Magic, the elderly deerhound in January, and just last week, our thirty year old Quarter Horse Dash, the last of the red horses at our old place in California, Rancho del Caballo Rojo. I am no poet, but tonight I came upon something I… Continue reading Past Lives
This Rough Magic
Have I given fire and rifted Jove’s stout oak With his own bolt; the strong-based promontory Have I made shake and by the spurs pluck’d up The pine and cedar: graves at my command Have waked their sleepers, oped, and let ’em forth By my so potent art. But this rough magic I here abjure… Continue reading This Rough Magic
Medicine at the Crossroads
“When you look for the bad in mankind expecting to find it, you surely will.” Pollyanna I try not to spend too much time on Facebook, but it’s always been a good way to keep up with “friends” in the Scottish Deerhound world. The deerhound, being a rare breed, tends to link… Continue reading Medicine at the Crossroads
It’s Been Awhile
Back in late September, my friends asked me if I was worried about the upcoming move to New Mexico. I replied, no, it would be a piece of cake compared to my earlier cross country move from Boston to California. After all, in 1993, I said goodbye to our babysitter of nine years and packed… Continue reading It’s Been Awhile
Do Dogs Know They are Dying?
Labor Day, 2006, is a day I will never forget. It was a gorgeous day here in San Diego—bright, sunny and nearly 90 degrees. I decided it was a perfect day to give the dogs an outdoor bath. At the time, we had Valentine, the matriarch at nearly twelve years old, Izzy who was four,… Continue reading Do Dogs Know They are Dying?
To Find, To Have and To Give Away
These days I have begun to separate my life into two separate eras which I call BE and AE, “before eBay” and “after eBay.” How could there have been so many things in the world which I never knew that I wanted? I think back to the early days of my marriage, when my husband… Continue reading To Find, To Have and To Give Away
The Mating Game
When I was a kid, we lived in the Braeswood apartment complex in Houston, TX, right next to the A & P grocery store. There were no leash laws back then, and everyone in the complex let their dogs run loose. I have one distinct memory of dog breeding from “back in the day”—I went… Continue reading The Mating Game