DAWGS:
From "101 Dalmations" to " Burt Reynolds as Charlie B. Barkin in "All Dogs go to Heaven", America loves their dawgs.
From the scruffy little dawg known as Benji to John Wayne's dawg in the movie Big Jake appropriately named "dawg", America loves their mutts.
From the animated classics to real life, dawgs touch our very heart and soul. They become family.
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| Maggie Dixon, Border Collie, Lab Mix circa 1999/2000 |
I always wanted to have another dawg after Brandie, boxer #2, passed away. However, apartment life and a career in hotels and restaurants just did not lend it self to being a dawg owner. Besides the hours at work, and apartment rules, there was all the moving and relocations. Owning a dawg just wasn't practical. Then one day, while I was out of town on training I got the phone call. You know the kind. The one that starts with "guess what I got US today?" Which usually translates into "guess what you get to deal with".
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| what? |
The story goes something like this: "there was this lady outside the grocery store with a shoe box full of puppies and giving them away. I know how much you've wanted a dawg and it's soooo cute! This was the last one." Now, let me stop right here and point out a the importance of that last statement, "the last one". One should always be cautious of "the last one", especially if it's free! Last one usually implies not the best one. Kinda like being picked last for kickball in grade school. Last one. Oh how those words would come to mean so much!
Maggie Dixon, a Border Collie/Lab mix, joined the family in the fall of 1998. According to the vet, she may not have even been three weeks old when she arrived. I learned a great deal about raising a dawg on my own with Maggie. Many of her issues were likely due to my inexperience in training a dawg, not too mention her type of breed living in an apartment. In an attempt to alleviate her stress of being left alone for long hours Maggie and I had a daily routine that included as much as three hours a day walking and playing at the local school track field; most often well after dark or in the wee hours of the morning, and almost always in the rain. Gotta love the Pacific Northwest when it rains.
Maggie may have been a little overprotective, if there is such a thing for a dawg, and she certainly didn't take to unknown men coming into the house, especially tall men. Never quite figured that one out, the taller the man the more worked up she got. Nonetheless, she let everyone know whose home they were in and who was in charge, then she just required all visitors to pet her....non stop! She terrorized my apartment as a puppy and almost got me evicted on more than one occasion.
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| Oh yes I CAN jump that high!\ [and she did!] |
However, Maggie was undoubtedly the smartest dawg I have ever had, perhaps have ever known. On our trips to the school field I would have Maggie sit at one end of the field while I walked toward the other end. She sat patiently and anxious to run. Once I got about middle of the field I would turn and pat my hand on my chest and she'd come a runnin! I would snap my finger, point toward the ground and Maggie would stop and lay down. Over time it got to be were I could be at the complete opposite end of the football field and do this process over and over till Maggie worked herself all the way to me. It was amazing to watch.
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| So you want me to sit where |
Another favorite was "carpet"! To keep Maggie out of the kitchen while cooking all you had to do was say "carpet", and to the doorway she went. She simply walked to the doorway leading to the den, turned and sat down on the carpet. Funniest thing. Over the first two years together, Maggie and I spent my days off exploring the Columbia Gorge, Washington & Oregon's coasts, and the woods near Washougal, Washington. She loved the snow and water. She swam in the Pacific Ocean while it was snowed and fell into a crevice on one of our trips up to Mt. St. Helens.
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| Maggie on our way to Mt. St. Helens, Washington circa 1999 |
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| Maggie moments before the snow gave way and she disappeared into an air pocket/crevice. Road to Mt. St. Helens |
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| Maggie Dixon circa Spring 2000 |
Maggie followed me on my journey for the next eight years. From Vancouver, WA, to Macon, GA, to Chapel Hill, NC, to Atlanta and finally to Savannah, GA. She stayed with me during some tough times and adapted as best she could to an ever changing environment. She even accepted and learned to live with Mickey when Toby and I married. More about Mickey (Toby's Lab) later. Maggie appears in a number of photos during my last few years in Washington and my only wish is that she could have been with us when we got the boat. She would have loved that adventure.
"The Last One", Maggie taught me does not mean the worst one. In her case it actually meant the Best One. Perhaps too often we just assume if no one has picked us by the end we must not be all that good. Maggie proved that concept is very wrong indeed.
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| Thanks for the bone, but yes, I still want to go outside. |
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| Maggie Dixon August 1998 - August 2006 |
Maggie Dixon: smart, loving, and energetic. Another Great Dawg!
as always,
bkd
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Humor for the day.....
A guy is driving around Oklahoma and he sees a sign in front of a house: "Talking Dog For Sale." He rings the bell and the owner tells him the dog is in the backyard.
The guy goes into the backyard and sees a Labrador retriever sitting there.
"You talk?" he asks.
"Yep," the Lab replies.
"So, what's your story?"
The Lab looks up and says, "Well, I discovered that I could talk when I was pretty young. I wanted to help the government, so I told the CIA about my gift, and in no time at all they had me jetting from country to country, sitting in rooms with spies and world leaders, because no one figured a dog would be eavesdropping. I was one of their most valuable spies for eight years running."
"But the jetting around really tired me out, and I knew I wasn't getting any younger so I decided to settle down. I signed up for a job at the airport to do some undercover security wandering near suspicious characters and listening in."
"I uncovered some incredible dealings and was awarded a batch of medals. I got married, had a mess of puppies, and now I'm just retired."
The guy is amazed. He goes back in and asks the owner what he wants for the dog.
"Ten dollars," the guy says.
"Ten dollars? This dog is amazing. Why on earth are you selling him so cheap?"
"Because he's a damn liar. He never did any of that stuff."
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