Seamus is our family dog. He is a Lab and Rhodesian
Ridgeback mix, a pound puppy. The Lab
part is prominent, the African lion hunter shows in just the coarse ridge of
fur along his backbone. He is blonde short haired with patches of white on all
paws, the tip of his tail, patches on his shoulders and a little streak on his
forehead between furrowed eye brows. He
has long brown eye lashes and huge brown trusting eyes that look deep into your
soul. He has a Lab's ears, completely expressive: all the way up he's excited
focused, or asleep. At half mast his ears mean contemplation, curiosity, or possibly
in trouble from eating the loaf of bread on the kitchen counter. And hound dog
down, like now, just sadness.
I've had a long
string of dogs in my life but Seamus is by far the smartest and the most
attuned to human mood and behavior. He was the runt of the litter; all his
brothers used him as their pillow; and one look at him at 12 weeks and my
family was hooked. We paid the pound to neuter him, chip him, give him his
needed shots and brought him home. He was hungry, dehydrated, had pneumonia and
needed the emergency animal hospital the first weekend, but he was instantly
loved, fed, nurtured and became as ingrained into our family as another
sibling.
Seamus has liver and
lung cancer at age six and will have to get the big sleep very soon. We are all in denial; we have cried our eyes dry of tears in bouts. It
doesn't change the inevitable. Seamus can hardly walk, his eyes say he doesn't
understand why he is so bloated, why he can't run and play bone hockey on the slippery
tile floor in the den. He is sad from sensing our sadness, just as he was sad
when Sally was so sick with breast cancer.
He is a real comic: he sings when Kathleen plays her flute
or blows into an empty bottle. He puts his head up and howls at the moon but is
as serious about it as Kathleen is about playing: he is boldly signing a dog song
and howls with great pride. He loves a giant nylon bone which he carries around
wagging his tail and his whole rear half whenever we come home: a bone greeting
showing off his most special possession to us. He will throw the bone into the
den, pounce on it and slide across the floor: bone hockey. He is a great tease,
carrying the bone or one of a variety of rubber balls over to us, just out of
reach and jerking the ball away when we reach for it. It's the tease game and
he trained us so we can all play it. He adopted the love seat in the living
room under the picture window where he can sleep and keep an eye on the
neighborhood.
Seamus has perfected a blood curdling snarl bark that scares
our mailman enough that he keeps his hand on his pepper spray when he delivers
the mail, but in fact Seamus would not hurt a flea unless he was protecting us.
He is a gentle lamb, a real baby and at six, until his sudden decline was still
as puppyish as he was at 6 months. He loves to sleep under a light blanket on
Kathleen's bed at night.
Seamus is a Lab, but afraid of water (must be his African
genes). He will dig in the mud at the edge of the lake, just to play in the
mud, and only this year figured out he can wade out to his knees. He will sneak
up to the edge of the pool and stare at his reflection, but he's not swimming;
no way.
His greatest love besides ice cream is going for a walk or a
car ride. As we prepare for either, he knows--he alerts on the words
"walk" and "car" and "park" and starts running in
circles. If we grab an empty plastic bag, he's beside himself with joy. Pure
dog joy. Regardless how tired we are from a long day at work, his joy infects
us. He is such a clever clown. He has given his family so many laughs, so many
licks of love, and so much companionship, the accidents on the carpet and a few
steaks stolen from the kitchen counter are not tallied or even remembered. He
had an extra large serving of ice cream tonight. I wish he was well enough for
one last walk. He will be sorely missed.
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