Hunter

I’ve almost always had a dog. Cookie, a corgi, was in my life when I was born. Piper, a Westie, arrived shortly after Cookie passed on, unexpectedly adopted while visiting my uncle in London. Years later, my parents rescued a seven-year-old Sassy, a poodle mutt. Then Hunter came into Bev’s and my life.

When Albert went ice fishing with Greg one frigid February weekend, he never expecting that the biggest catch of the day would be a dog. He found Hunter hanging about their shack, desperate for rescue and attention. She was hungry. She was emaciated. You could see her ribs in stark relief against her flank. Her spine was plainly visible down the length of her back. Albert’s heart melted. How could anyone abandon a dog out on Nighthawk in the middle of the winter? What could they have been thinking? The truth is that whoever had left her out there probably expected that she’d be picked up by one of the plentiful ice fishers scattered about the lake. There were a lot of them, after all. I don’t think that they expected that Hunter would spend the next week fending for herself, scraping up what crumbs and minnows she could find by the camps to survive. At least I hope they didn’t leave her out on the lake to die. She was only a puppy, only five months old.

Albert fed her. That in itself would have kept her hanging about, however skittish she may have been at first; in fact, were I her, I’d have never left his side once he fed me. And she didn’t. When they left her in the fishing shack by herself to warm up, they were surprised to find her sitting beside them again after she managed to escape by squeezing between the floor and the ice. She could have slipped into the hole. She might have been caught up in the lines.

Albert decided to bring her home and find her owner. He propped her up on the skidoo before him. It was difficult to steer with her there, so much so that he and she spilled off the sled before reaching the shore. He placed an ad in the paper. He asked Bev to place an ad on the local community TV channel. There was no response to either.

Then one day, Bev said, “I want her,” to me. Prior to that, she’d always said that we should never get a dog. We could never devote enough time to it, she said. It would have to spend long hours alone while we worked. All that changed when she saw Hunter. Doe eyes, red, blonde coat, patched and socked with white. And she was smart, smarter than any dog I’ve ever known. She’d had to be to escape a fishing hut with such ease. Smart enough to escape a latched kennel. Smart enough to be furious at being left alone. And willful too. She was suffering from separation anxiety and did a world of mischief while we were gone. She targeted my stuff when she had a fit. I took that to mean that she had imprinted on me more than she had on Bev. And she needed to be house trained. So, we kennelled her by day.

I returned from work one day to find her happy as a lark, her tail wagging, her nose pressed up against the window. But she’d been placed in her kennel before Bev had left for work. I inspected the kennel. It was still latched. How had she escaped from there, I wondered? I thought I knew how; there was only one way she could have done it, as far as I could tell. The next day, I was faced with the same sight, only this time there was a long gouge in the drywall where she’d escaped from the cage. She’d obviously thrown her weight against the kennel wall until the hooks detached the wall from the roof, and then she nosed her head and body through.

I fix, I thought. I bought some zip ties and fastened the joins in place. She looked none too pleased when I returned home from work the next day. She dashed from the cage when I released her.
I had to do something about her pent-up energy. She was still in her first year, after all. She needed exercise and lots of it. So, I took her out on the nature trail behind our house. It was painful at first. My spine ached terribly each and every walk, so much so that there were days when I thought I might have to call for help using my cell phone. Help! I’ve fallen and I can’t get up! Luckily, I never had to; I always made it home, even if I had to lay on the couch for a couple hours afterwards until the throbbing subsided and I could support myself again. I walked her off leash back there, hoping she wouldn’t take off or get eaten by a bear. I needn’t have worried. I think she could have easily outrun a bear, but she would have probably run right back to me for me to protect her and I could barely walk then, let alone run. And as for her taking off and running away, she appeared at regular intervals to see if the slowpoke was still following her; and she grew to know where we turned around, always finding her way to that exact spot the moment I reached it. Otherwise she swept past me time and again, racing far forward and retracing our path in search of whatever, or maybe she was just revelling in her freedom to run wherever. I’d find her covered in mud to half-way up her flanks and always had to bathe her when we arrived back home. There was no way I was letting her back in the house like that. I’d tell her so, time and again, as I first worked the shampoo into her two coats and then back out again, saying, “I told you so, but do you listen? No. So here you are, having a bath again.” She’d just look at me and shiver. The water from the hose was that cold.

We free fed her from the start, first to put the weight back on her bones, later because she was accustomed to it being there and never overate. That did not stop her from eating her poop, though. It was gross. People said, put some pepper on it; dogs hate spice. That will cure her of it, they said. But how was I to stop her when she ate it right after producing it? When would I put the pepper on it? So that solution was impractical. I watched her like a hawk, instead, staying with her while she did her business, nudging her head aside when she sniffed it, saying, “No,” when she did.

Then she ate a tropical plant. It made her violently ill. I couldn’t believe that a dog could puke so much. I couldn’t believe that a dog could shit so much. On the bright side, we got a new couch and chairs.
She was work that first year. But she calmed down. I loved her. I love her still, even though she’s gone now.

She was never a touchy-feely dog. She hated to be lifted or carried. She was a four on the floor sort of dog. But she lavished us with kisses. She was always in the window when she knew we were coming home. So, I’m pretty sure that she loved us too.

Cookie

Cookie was my first dog, or more accurately, she was my parents’ dog, even more accurately, she was my father’s dog. My mother could call for her until she was blue in the face without result. She’d give up, my father would open the door, call out for her once, and Cookie would be at the door in minutes. She was a corgi, a very popular breed then, as the Queen had a kennel full of them.

Cookie may have been the runt of her litter, but she was a giant in my eyes. She was my first companion. Loving, protective, always present. She followed me everywhere. And like I said, she helped me out from time to time while I learned to keep my balance.

When I began attending school, she was waiting in the window for my return. My mother tells me Cookie would just rise and go to the window about five minutes before I returned. (I've witnessed Hunter do the same, Piper, Sassy, Jasper too; dogs must be very aware of their internal clock.)

Cookie was smart. She could be cunning, too. There was this kid on the street that used to taunt her. She’d end up choking herself at the end of her rope as the kid wound her up, time and again, laughing at her; until the day she pretended not to reach, only advancing halfway up the extent of her rope. The taunting kid neglected to notice Cookie’s slack rope and entered her range. And then she rushed him. The kid was so surprised, he staggered back, falling on his ass.

Cookie was with us for some years after we moved to Timmins. Then she got cancer. And she died. Her passing was likely the first taste of intense grief I had ever experienced.

But that was still years away.