Beloved Honey

Our beloved Honey dog passed away last Thursday January 15th. She had been suffering from kidney disease which was triggered by Lyme disease she contracted in November. We miss her terribly. Our family and community of friends and neighbors loved Honey and they all miss her too. It is so sad. As I make the rounds without her I tell people and we shed tears together. The letters and cards and flowers have been flooding in. I am comforted to know that she had a wonderful life while enriching ours. She taught me that she was happiest walking for many miles each day and then running as fast as she could to chase and jump after the tennis ball. So we did as often as we could, and getting out was a blessing to us both! She was a graceful and beautiful athlete. A real dog ballerina! She could hop over a tiny fence in our flower garden to retrieve a ball and not disturb the plants. She was a working dog put to work. She was a conduit for me to connect to my community. Because we were rarely apart and we were both a bit daring, I brought her places dogs aren't allowed; the parks, the bank, the YMCA, Beacon school, the post office, the public library, city hall, GiGi's store, even the police station. People were thrilled to meet her and many got to know her including the dog catcher and all of the public works folks who work outdoors around the city. She was fifty pounds - lamb sized - and would sometimes curl up in my lap on car rides when we were both passengers. I could lift her and carry her if ever I needed to. When we went for walks it wasn't unusual for people to shout out of their cars and apartment windows "What a pretty dog!" as we walked by. She was a magnet and a conduit for nearly everyone in her path. She was our little brown monkey.

When she sat upright her proportions were beautifully showcased. She looked like an adolescent chocolate lab. She was a mixture of chocolate Labrador and German Short-haired Pointer. I adopted her just after Veteran's Day Weekend November 2002 from the North Kingstown Dog Pound. They told me she had been abandoned at a horse farm. My vet examined her teeth and determined she was about two. She had a long scar behind her right shoulder that told the story of having been hit by a car. That's probably why she never liked trucks or motorcycles driving by. When we adopted her she had never been indoors. It was all a new experience for her, riding in a car, walking up and down stairs, and learning to tell us when she needed to pee. We discovered she loved to play and chew plastic bottles or milk jugs; she loved making the crinkling sound. I imagined that was what the former owners threw out in their yard for her to play with. She would drink other people's coffee if they put their cup down unattended. She had loose lips - when she drank water she gulped heartily and then left a sloppy trail of water. I learned this was a Pointer thing! In the summer when she had been playing fetch she would put her front paws in the water bowl to cool off. She loved to swim and had gorgeous thick sturdy hairy-between-the-pads webbed feet! I always loved and admired her big feet! But in winter if she got salty ice clumps in her paws she would lift them up which made walking tough. We would stop to take out the ice balls or I would sometimes carry her over to a fluffy snow spot. One winter we got her booties. She didn't mind wearing them and ran through the deep snow in the cemetery that day until the booties were rags.

When I caught her counter-surfing and scolded her she just let it roll off her back. She had no remorse. She wasn't afraid of fireworks. She had separation anxiety (but so did I!) She was a clockwise dog - running in circles, sometimes even chasing her tail. She liked to keep us on a strict schedule! She was the most vocal dog I've ever had, barking her commands which was good because she had a small bladder and drank lots of water. We would lose track of time but she never did. One time she ate a blob of my sourdough bread dough set to rise and got drunk and staggered and was sick for a day. It was awful. We called her the prettiest dog in the world! With her yellow eyes and Pointer face and soft shapely ears she was a heart melter. She was the most curious dog I'd ever had. She stuck her nose in every box, bag, purse, and instrument case that came into our house. When in the kitchen she'd get flour on her nose, standing under me while I was measuring it out.

I am afraid of loving again, afraid of all of the tick borne diseases and high costs of vet care, afraid of never finding a dog as wonderful as Honey. But as my pals The Red Clay Ramblers wrote in their song "It's half a life without a dog!"