Puppies and children naturally go together. Few things please a child more at Christmastime than a warm, furry puppy. Parents cherish the look on a child’s face when they receive a puppy at Christmas or another time
My young adult children, for whatever reason and without their Dad’s knowledge, decided to turn the tables and give their Mom, age“forty plus,” a puppy for Christmas. To say it was a surprise is an understatement. It was a delightful surprise.
That is how Babe came into my life. She was a Weimaraner like Schultzie, the First Dog, which I wrote about earlier. I was taking a break from education and had a small office in the house. It was a cold winter, so Babe spent her days on a cushion bed under my desk. There was another dog in the family, Cynthia’s poodle, Chief. They had side by side beds in a hallway at night. She literally grew up beside me or at my feet most of the time. She tried to keep that position all of her life. She was truly my dog. Whenever someone she did not know was near me, she would automatically place herself between the other person and me. She did not growl, bark, or assume an aggressive stance. She just took up her protective position. There were a few times when the hair on her back would start standing up and I had to assure her that everything was O.K.
Babe loved excursions with Ken and the children. She liked running around thefarm but her favorite activity was swimming in the San Gabriel River. These were the days before LakeGeorgetown, and there were low water crossings along the river.Families and teens of that era swam and picnicked at areas around these crossings. The friends of the children were always amused when Babe would “fetch” rocks from the bottom of the river. They would throw a rock in the river. Babe would jump in, put her head under water and paw around in the rocks. Then she would triumphantly bring a rock back as though it was the same one. She could spend hours doing this. She would do this same hunting game in shallow water or along the rocky shore. She appeared to be carefully choosing the rock to pick up. She liked to find large rocks and bring them to shore. Our son Kevin remembers taking her to the last crossing above where Lake Georgetown is now located. It was an excellent site for hunting fossils. She would help him dig for a while and then go play in the water for while. She always brought him rocks.
She also could be stubborn. Kevin remembers that the last time he took her to the river; she swam across to the opposite bank. He called her to come back. She got half way across and decided to turn around. He had to go get her and drag her back to the other side. They both had a hard time. She fought him tooth and toenail all the way. She was a great water dog.
When she got older, we decided to breed Babe and have a litter of puppies. We were in the process of moving to the Rio Grande Valley, so the timing was not particularly good. She had six puppies in Georgetown. Cynthia assisted me, and we took her and the puppies to the Valley. It was quite a trip. Babe was nervous during the entire trip. Our vet had warned us of this as it was approximately a 7 or 8- hour ride from Georgetown. He gave us a mild tranquilizer for her. The puppies rode in a box except when they were eating. We had driven to San Antonio before we stopped for a pit stop near a Whataburger. I took Babe out of the pickup for a break while Cynthia went for hamburgers. Babe did not want to get back into the pickup. She sat solidly and would not move. She was relaxed and rather limp, but uncooperative. She was a big dog and it took both of us to get her into the pickup. We realized we were getting some “What on earth?” looks from people in the parking lot. We both had spasms of laughter which did not help the situation. This caused us to be unsuccessful in the first few attempts. We finally got on the road again.
There was another trip with her and the puppies. It was back to Georgetown to sell the puppies. That trip was uneventful. I was relieved when the last puppy went to a new home. I had had all of that fun I wanted. Some time later, our vet queried, “You sure you want to spay a registered dog?” I did not hesitate to reply, “Yes, I am sure.”
Our valley residence was on the outskirts of La Feria on several acres. The property was not fenced. Babe had been inside a much smaller fenced yard in Georgetown. Her buddy Chief was fascinated with the yard. He had never seen so many birds and wildlife. He would sit on the porch and watch bunnies hopping around. Neither dog tried to chase them, just observed. Chief seemed to assume they ran around the yard just to entertain him.
Every day for about two weeks, Ken walked the perimeter of the property withBabe and corrected her if she started toward the roadway or the adjoining properties. I was apprehensive about her staying inside the boundaries, but she did. We had a full- time yard man who lived on the property and he said she never strayed. She often made a walking inspection around the perimeter, but she stayed on her side. That is except one time. There were two aggressive dogs across the road. She ignored them until one afternoon she and Ken were at the front near the roadway. The two came barking aggressively into our driveway and onto the yard. She ran toward them and chased them all the way down their own driveway. They never crossed the road again.
Babe developed health problems when she got old. The vet said that she probably had cancer. We did not proceed with testing as she was old and the vet said it probably could not be successfully treated. He gave her a steroid shot and she improved. After several shots, Ken tried to get me to agree to euthanize her. I tentatively agreed. The last trip to the vet was on a Saturday morning. He said that he could give her another shot, but it would probably give her only 4 to 6 weeks more, possibly less. I said to him, “But she is not suffering.” He put his hand on my arm and gently said, “You know that Weimars don’t complain.” I looked at Ken, started crying, and said, “Do it.” Then I walked out into the waiting room which was full of little kids and their pets. The woman walking out crying really got some strange looks from the little ones.
The weather matched my mood. It was a dreary, drizzly day. There was a marker at the back of the property identifying the grave of a dog the owner had when he was growing up there. Babe’s pal Chief had died of old age one night previously. He was buried there also. That was where I wanted Babe buried. Ken picked her body up and dug her grave in a light rain.
I had lost a good friend.