Under My Skin
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Over my lifetime I have had more animals than I can count, but I can count on one hand those that seared my heart. There was my first dog, Gomer.  There was my first horse, Gypsy, and her first foal, Periwinkle, who lived a short 21 days.  There was my last horse, Dancer.  There was the unforgettable 3-legged cat named Tigger. There was my canine soul-mate, Max.

Max

Some are still with me, like Barney and Hellan.  Ok, maybe I need two hands to do this counting, and possibly some toes.  And clearly they all deserve their own stories to be written.  I’ll get around to that.

What brings all of this to mind is the mini-crisis I had earlier this week when I lost a leash.  “A leash?”  you ask.   I know, I know, this is not the end of the world.  What a stupid, trivial thing to get upset about.

Butterfly and I had taken our 5 dogs on one of our usual walks early one morning.  We have to go early in the morning or not at all to beat the heat (95-100 degrees most days).  Our usual routine is to walk up over the hill behind our property (a very, very steep hill called Big Hill) until we reach a neighbor’s driveway where their well is located.  Since it is so very dry here, it is a convenient spot where I can water the dogs, so that all I have to carry is a bowl for them.  Carrying enough water for that many dogs is no fun, so this is an easy out for me.  The only year-round creek is so close to home that it isn’t much help when we’re at the other end of the walk.  You can bet, though, that the water-loving dogs make a bee-line for it on the way home!

The whole trip is just a little over 5 miles.  On that particular day, we were about ¾ of the way home, when I realized I was missing one of the leashes.  I always have leashes for everybody, but don’t have to use them very often – only if we see cattle, or horses, or some other situation that requires me to get everyone under control quickly.  Celony, of course, is leashed all the time due to her penchant for pancreatitis.  She’ll eat anything she can get hold of, so she has to be kept under control.

As we thought about where the missing leash might be, we mentally back-tracked the route we had taken.  We had encountered only one vehicle during the entire trip (which is one of the reasons we like this route), and I suspected that when I bent over to gather dogs to me, one of the leashes might have slipped to the ground.  Or maybe I dropped it at the well, when I set down my backpack to get out the water bowl. 

Butterfly, of course, said, “Let’s walk back and look for it!”

I just looked at her like she was nuts.  “I don’t have the time or the energy to do another 5 miles right now, but thanks for the offer!”  I had an irrigation guy coming to the house and one of us needed to be home for him. 

I knew, though, that I would be going next-door to help with the CB’s bandage change, so I figured I’d take the car and just zip up Big Hill then, doing a quick scan for the missing leash.

“Why the big deal,” you’re probably wondering, “about a silly leash?” 

Well, it’s like this - it wasn’t just any old leash.  It had been Roofus’ leash.  Roofus … dear, sweet Roofus, the ‘97 flood dog, who had been pulled off a roof where he’d languished for 3 days. 

Roofus

He was the apparently feral dog that pretty much no one but me believed would ever amount to anything.  He was the dog who was so absolutely terrified at the emergency shelter during that wild winter storm that I knew I had to find him a special safe haven.  Just one look, and that bolt of electricity passed between us.  Well, ok, maybe it only went one way – from me to him – he was not at all interested at the time in falling in love with me.  But I saw something in his eyes that grabbed me.

Of course no owner came looking for this terrified mongrel.  No one claimed him.  No one wanted him.  No one, that is, except me.

Roofie - the dog that I had to pour my heart and soul into to convince him that the world was not out to get him, that there was a safe place … with me.  The dog that learned to trust me implicitly, who became my hiking buddy, who guarded me valiantly, who struggled until the day he died (10 years later) to be a “normal” dog.

It was just a year ago that Roofus was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and I still think about him all the time.  Even Butterfly will look around for him when we’re on a walk, and then remember, “Oh, I keep forgetting we don’t have Roofie with us anymore.”   I don’t know what the proper mourning period is for “just a dog”.  When it’s been a year (on September 3rd) will I magically stop thinking of him so often?

He used to goose me in the butt every morning in the kitchen.  I don’t know why.  I’d already fed him his breakfast.  I guess it was just his way of saying, “Good morning!  Isn’t it a grand morning?  Aren’t we going to have a great day together?!”  And he knew it would always make me laugh, especially because it always amazed me that a dog who started out be untouchable, uncatchable, was now goosing me!  Playing with me!  Loving me!

So when I lost that leash, it was like losing Roofus all over again.  I admit that sounds dumb, and dramatic, and over the top. At first I couldn’t figure out why I felt so bereft.  Then it hit me.

For so many months, in the beginning, a leash was my only link to Roofus.  He couldn’t be off the leash outside, because he couldn’t be captured if he got loose.  And even in the house, he wandered around with a leash hanging off his collar, so that he could be dragged from behind the couch, or out from under the bed, or wherever he had hidden himself.  He was so fearful of people, of sudden noises, of just about everything, that the leash was the way we “reeled” him in, like a fish.  He never struggled against it, and never offered to bite or be vicious – he just resigned himself to it.  But for the longest time, he would rather just shrink away from us. 

Yes, it was his leash, not that he ever used it any more.  He had the best manners of any of my dogs.  He never needed to be leashed.  He walked at my heels like the perfect gentleman.  But “the leash” had a history with him that neither he nor I would ever forget.  It had forged a bond between us that would last until the very end.  Did last until the very end.

So it felt like that leash was my last link with him.  And I was angry.  Someone must have picked it up and taken it!  I couldn’t believe it.  Why wouldn’t they just hang it in a tree or on a rock for me to find?  Or put it on my fence – everyone in the area, for gosh sakes, knows where the whacko with all the dogs lives.

And then yesterday Linda and I made the same walk with a bunch of dogs – hers and mine.  We got to the well and I opened my backpack to take out the bowl to water the dogs.  Guess what I found in the bottom of my green backpack.  I found the green leash!

 I had, of course, looked in the backpack already, but hadn’t seen the leash. It must have been too dark, or I must not have looked closely enough or … or … I don’t know.  I was just so relieved to see that leash – I cannot even tell you.

Linda understood though.  She was there from the beginning, when I stumbled across Roofus at the shelter; she was working right alongside me.  She misses him, too.  Sometimes those special ones come along and will be in your heart forever.

R.I.P.