Our dogs are getting older. I think you’ve heard me mention Emma. Emma is 13. I have been expecting Emma to die for at least the last two years. I have used her imminent demise as an excuse to get a puppy in 2005…and earlier this year…and to do a breeding this year. And I’ll be keeping Blue here, at least part time, because I’m still expecting Emma to die. I’m embarrassed to admit that it’s almost become a joke in our house: “Yes, Emma is still fine. She’s not going to die today.”

You have to understand that sometimes Emma acts like an old dog, but other times she wants to play and race through the house. So she sends very mixed signals. I think she likes keeping us confused. But the vet says she’s in good health with nothing wrong with her. That’s pretty good for a 13-year-old. And 13 is pretty old for an English Setter. One thing we know — don’t get between Emma and her food. The girl never misses a meal. Plus, she always gets the best place to sleep. Hopefully she will make it to her 14th birthday in September.

I have two dogs who are 11 but they don’t act old either. I’m starting to think I may have to redefine my ideas about what constitutes an “old” dog. I know the vets and dog food companies say anything over seven years is “old,” but that just hasn’t been our experience, at least with this breed.

At any rate, there’s a nice article in the TheDay.com from Connecticut about someone else who kept expecting her old dog to die. He’s 18 now. Maybe Emma can make it that long, too. I hope so.

Lessons Our Old Dogs Teach Us
Animals often reflect the joy and dignity of life
By Elanah Sherman Published on 12/30/2007

Elanah Sherman with Ezra, her 18-year-old Australian shepherd. By Adena Stevens

THE last 10 years or so have seen a plethora of articles about baby boomers (like me) and their aging parents (like my mother). The repeated analogy is by now familiar: Children become the parents, dealing with everything from cognitive loss to mobility problems to heartbreaking diseases.

There is, however, another caretaking phenomenon afoot.

I have an old dog, a very old dog, and so too do many of my friends and colleagues. Water cooler talk at the office reflects this area of dilemma and concern.

We discuss diet and sleeping habits; we share notes on medication and exercise; we review changes in routine, theirs and ours. We recall the histories of our very old dogs.

I adopted my 18-year old Australian shepherd, Ezra, out of a dog pound when he was about 5-years-old. Seven years ago, when I began to dread his demise, I acquired another pound dog, a 2-year-old chow mix whose glamour demanded an elegant name, Vivian. During each of our annual mountain vacations since then, I have wondered that it might be Ezra’s last and have mournfully taken photographs of “his last trip.”

As the years passed, I’d begun to joke that I might see my last trip before his.

But things are changing.

The spirit is there, but there is also a limp and sensitivity in various parts of his body, along with new fears and anxieties. He sleeps more deeply, sometimes failing to wake up at noises. Other times, he seems confused, issuing random barks and whimpers. Remarkably, he keeps up with the other dogs — I now have three — and he is still capable of great bursts of energy and athleticism, teasing the younger ones with lightening-fast spins that are an inheritance of his breed.

He needs to go out more often and I am lucky to have a pet sitter who is kind and responsible and lives right down the street. My pet sitter calls Ezra her nephew, but I remind her that, considering Ezra’s years in human terms, she might more appropriately call him her uncle.

His personality and character remain. He is funny, and a bit of a curmudgeon. He guards his toys against the cats, who he mistakenly believes covet them. At the end of the day, I often find the precious toys collected in a pile, a signal that Ezra’s gifts of strategy and organization are intact.

Every night at my house, the ritual is the same: My three dogs, not all at once, climb the stairs and deposit themselves in one of the three foam dog beds that monopolize the bedroom floor.

Abel, who spent seven years enclosed in a dark pen before I adopted him, is first, bounding up the stairs in nightly celebration of his new domestic comforts.

Vivian saunters up next.

Ezra is last.

He resists my efforts to help him and whimpers at the bottom of the steps for what seems like a painful eternity.

“Come up, sweetheart,” I implore him. Finally, prevailing over his new fear of the steep staircase, he makes his way, lies down, and falls into a deep and peaceful sleep, his compact body stretched out, and his whitened face composed and calm.

Each day I learn new lessons from him about the availability of joy and the persistence of dignity. He has his struggles, but he is still happily alive and with me.

How I will miss him.

Elanah Sherman makes her home in Norwich.

As wolf attacks continue in populated areas of Alaska, the Anchorage Daily News has a very interesting column in their paper today. Mr. Medred makes some good points, I think. Not only are these wolves a danger to dogs and to people, but they’re harming the image of wolves that many people have worked hard to improve. I know I’ve written a couple of feature stories myself about wolves, stressing conservation and the fact that they have a place in the environment. But I think all bets are off when they start moseying into large city areas and launching attacks. That’s not good for anyone, including wolf populations in general.

From the Anchorage Daily News.

No one’s howling when wolves eat dogs
By CRAIG MEDRED
cmedred@adn.com
Published: December 30th, 2007 02:10 AM

Where, oh where, are the humaniacs when our companion animals need them?

This has not been a good winter to be a dog in Alaska.

Aside from the frighteningly “normal” dangers for domestic canines — being struck dead by motor vehicles or dumped at the pound by owners who don’t really care for pets — natural dangers have risen up with a vengeance:

Dogs disappearing into glacier-like crevasses in the Kenai Mountains.

Dogs attacked and eaten by wolves.

You could almost say it’s dangerous for Fido just to leave the house.

So where are the companion-animal lovers of PETA and the Humane Society, usually so quick to offer unsolicited advice? As we all know, they have a load of it every year for the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race. They’re more than happy to tell anyone who will listen that mushers shouldn’t run the race because a dog might die.

And because that could happen, they say, the race is cruel.

Well then, what about taking your dog out of the house to risk being eaten alive by wolves?

Which is worse here?

As a bit of an athlete myself, albeit a slow and aged one, the thought of the old ticker giving out someday while out on a run or a cycle doesn’t sound that bad.

Fall down, grab the chest, lose consciousness and follow the white lights on out of here.

Yes, I’ve seen the white lights. I don’t know to where or what they lead, but there was a day they didn’t look all that far away, and they didn’t look all that bad. They came, incidentally, at the end of a long fall onto a rock ledge that probably prevented a longer fall, or I wouldn’t be here writing this.

Going out this way or in some variant thereof seems preferable to being eaten alive by wild animals — any wild animals.

I have a little experience in that arena, too. I once shot a grizzly bear that had its teeth in my ankle.

(No, as humorist Dave Barry used to say, I am not making this up, and I have the scars to prove it.)

That experience left me with a very strong opinion that being eaten alive by wild animals would be a bad way to check out — a very, very bad way to check out.

“Bears,” as a highly knowledgeable biologist acquaintance once observed, “don’t kill; they eat.”

Wolves are only slightly better in this regard. Because they are smaller and weaker than bears, they have to get their “kills” down dead or very close to it before they can actually start eating, but they are capable of ripping out some pretty big, tasty chunks of flesh in the process.

I certainly wouldn’t want one of our dogs to die in this way. Of course, I don’t like the thought of any of our dogs dying, period. There’s a part of me that is as much a stupid old dog lover as some of those Iditarod mushers.

As such, I like wild canines, too. But as I’ve told others about the relationships we have not only with our pets but the pets of others:

“Your dog is just a dog. My dog is family.”

Much the same applies to our wild canine friends:

“A wolf is just a wolf. My dog is family.”

If you understand this, it leads to an easy conclusion as to what ought to be done today to aid Alaska’s pets.

Somebody ought to whack a few of those marauding wolves, as a save-the-wilderness, protect-the-wolverines, stop-the-aerial-wolf-hunts friend bluntly observed the other day while were mountain biking through the Campbell Tract chuckling over how Alaska has changed in the past several decades.

Wolves killing dogs on the outskirts of Anchorage is one thing. The state’s largest city has always had a healthy community of tree huggers not only willing to have wolves and bears wandering up close to the edge of civilization, but happy about it.

But wolves killing dogs on the outskirts of Fairbanks? In the old Alaska, the only wolf that showed its hide near the Interior city was a dead wolf.

And, indeed, a few dead wolves in and around Fairbanks, not to mention Anchorage, might be a good idea these days. Particularly around Anchorage.

Our local wolves are generations removed from the realization that people are a danger. Reminding them of this before they eat someone’s dog and follow it up the leash to chew on someone’s arm might be a good idea. The evidence is out there to indicate that wolves that get too comfortable around people can end up hurting people.

No reasonable person would want that to happen, if for no other reason that wolf attacks on people are bad for the wolves’ image.

For that reason alone, you might think the humaniacs would be spouting off with some solution for Alaska’s latest, realest threat to dogs.

Then again, maybe not.

Find Craig Medred online at adn.com/contact/cmedred or call 257-4588.

From the Fond du Lac Reporter

Man’s best friends
Smidt teams up with sled dogs for quest

By Carlos Muñoz
The Reporter cmunoz@fdlreporter.com

Donald Smidt exercises his huskies near his Van Dyne home. The Reporter photo by Patrick Flood

Donald Smidt said he went to “hell and back” with 16 Siberian huskies during the 2007 Iditarod Trail sled dog race in March.

Six of the veteran sled dogs will race with Smidt at the Yukon Quest, which begins Feb. 9 in Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, Canada.

The Van Dyne area resident gained respect for his team, which took 16 days, 11 hours, 42 minutes, 58 seconds to finish the Iditarod in 57th — second from last place.

The team never challenged for the title, which went to Kasilof, Alaska’s Lance Mackey. Mackey won in 9 days, 5 hours, 8 minutes, 41 seconds.

The Smidt team moved at 2.84 mph during the 1,500-mile dog race. They faced high winds, difficult mountain passages and not enough snow, which made the trail slower than normal.

Smidt treated his huskies as equals, taking extra time to rest and care for them at checkpoints.

“The dogs and I now have a bond that is totally different,” Smidt said. “It is respect. I know the dogs wake up in the morning, and they look at the world differently.

“Even starting this year out with my veteran dogs (preparing for the Yukon Quest race), they know they can accomplish anything. They trained, and they’ve basically been to hell and back and they can do anything. Nothing can stop them.”

Twenty-six of the 83 mushers who started did not finish the Iditarod, and Smidt made it to the finish in Nome on his first try with all 16 huskies.

No rookie team has ever finished the race with 16 American Kennel club-registered Siberian huskies.

Orion, Summer, Dudley, Zelda, Lobo, Kiara, Ikon, At’um, Tasha, Bosley, Monty, Blizzard, Heart, Squire, Willie and Rider earned the right to become certified sled dogs, and a “S.D.” will be tagged the end of their names forevermore.

Smidt said his huskies deserve the esteem. Many of them were show dogs before the competition.

“It’s just amazing when you think of 1,500 miles, how far it is when you get in your car, or feel what you feel when you’re in the car,” Smidt said. “They just kept putting one foot in front of the other. They come into the checkpoint you give them their bail of straw, vet goes over them and you feed them, water them and you lay down for an hour (with them). Hour-and-a-half and get up again.

“They basically sleep during the whole time you put booties on and take the booties off. They pretty much eat and lay back down again.”

The huskies remained determined after more than two weeks pulling a sled through icy terrain, which included wind chills that plunged to 80 degrees below zero.

The Smidt team camped when temperatures fell dangerously low. The team huddled together next to a fire in a tent, far from the safety and warmth of any buildings.

“It’s phenomenal to see that they get that much drive into them to do that many miles,” Smidt said. “Can you imagine waking up in the morning and knowing you are going to do 60 miles and then lay down for 6 hours and do another 60 miles? The athleticism and the respect you learn for the dogs — what they can endure — is phenomenal.”

The Smidt team had its special personalities, including Heart, who ran like a champion and Orion, a natural leader.

“Heart, last year, was a sweetheart all through training,” Smidt said. “When it came to the trail, when you threw the food down, (none of the other dogs) touched her food.

“At’um and Montie, it didn’t matter how many miles we went or how many hours we sat at the checkpoint, when I said ‘Go,’ they started barking and yapping. They were motivators for the team. When it’s time to go, it’s time to go.”

Most of the huskies came from Howl ‘N Winds Kennels, which is co-owned by Smidt and Denise Cwiok.

Cwiok said she refers to the huskies as “her kids.”

On the trail, the huskies wore more than 1,500 booties to protect the padding of their feet, and they also had on jackets to keep in their heat.

A grade school in East Troy donated Packers booties, which were worn during the start of the race. Each bootie costs a dollar to make.

“I happen to have Orion, and I know that dog will do things for me just as long as he understands what he’s supposed to do,” Smidt said. “He’ll endure whatever it takes to get me where I need to go. That’s the commitment the dogs start to pick up on you and you have with them. It’s a respect back and forth.

“It’s a team effort and you are basically just the coach and telling them what to do and guiding them through their difficulty. They need to have faith that you aren’t going to put them some place and jeopardize them. You have to be smart and not jeopardize them.”

The 1,100-mile Yukon Quest race will finish in Fairbanks, Alaska.

In the middle of the night, my phone rang. It always frightens me. The first thing I think of, is that a family member or friend needs me. Or the call will be about an animal in distress. This call was both. A friend had a small dog called Tish. Her dog has been very sick for a long time. Old age, arthritis, stomach problems, and cancer. The vet had provided excellent care for Tish, including pain medication. It had reached a point where the small dog was suffering. It was time.

The phone ringing in the night was a request for me to take Tish to the vet, and stay with her while she was put to sleep. People have such different views on allowing an animal an easy death. Some can’t bring themselves to accompany the dog, other’s think it is a duty to the animal that one must put themselves through. The bottom line for me is, to not judge the owner, I do what I can for the dog.

I drove over to my friends home, stopping to pick up a volunteer who would drive as I held the animal. Tish’s mom looked as if she had aged ten years. She was overwhelmed with grief, sobbing as I took her dog out of her arms. Tish wasn’t very responsive. Her body was so thin, and in pain. I wrapped her in a soft pink blanket and quickly left the house.

At the clinic all was ready. Soft music playing, the lighting dimmed, gentle hands and voices. My heart ached, tears flowed. I always dread the moment when I see the needle, and know there are only moments left. I cradled that tiny sick dog, kissed her, whispered in her ear that she had been the best little dog ever, that her mama loved her, and that she would be going to a place where the sun would shine, there would be no pain, she could play until her mom came to join her. For one brief moment, Tish looked at me. She was so tired. She gave me a small lick. I stroked her fur, held her close, felt her small body go limp, and just like that, it was over.

I’m always shaken. Tish was here, alive, then gone. I held her body for a long time, rocking her, patting the little bundle, whispering love into an ear that could no longer hear. There is something beautiful on those final moments. It is like time stands still, nothing moves, a sense of peace fills me. I will mourn and cry. It will haunt me, except for one thing that seems to happen each and every time I accompany a dog for the final moment. The vet says it is only my heighteded senses, listening for the heart to stop beating. I know different. I hear a fluttering sound. It’s the beating of angel wings as they arrive to take another beloved pet to the rainbow bridge and beyond. When I hear that, I know I may leave, my part, my duty is done. Tish is at rest.

Written for Tish, and if possible with thanks to her Angels who carried her to the other side.

I know there are mixed opinions about making dogs the beneficiaries of big inheritances. Comedians and news people (who think they’re comedians) love to make fun of these dogs and their owners. People are still taking jabs at Leona Helmsley for leaving $12 million to her Maltese Trouble. But, if I had the money I know I’d leave a lot of it for taking care of my dogs. Here are three dogs who were left well-provided for by their late owner.

From the Associated Press

3 Md. Dogs Enjoy $800,000 Inheritance

HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) — They’re not as loaded as Leona Helmsley’s pooch, but three Maryland canines are plenty rich enough to live high on the dog.

The dogs — named Buckshot, Katie and Obu-Jet — inherited $400,000 and a house in Hagerstown with the death last year of owner Ken Kemper. Altogether, their estate is worth about $800,000.

The beagle and two Labrador mixes were strays when Kemper adopted them. They now live at their house with caretaker Roy Grady.

They might not be aware of their wealth, but they do know that on one night a week Grady treats them to spaghetti dinner, with meatballs and garlic bread.

“They love it,” he said. “They know when it’s coming on Friday, too. They have that time clock.”

They also get top-notch health care. When Katie got out of the yard last summer and was hit by a car, she made 40 visits to a veterinarian’s office to mend her broken legs and hip. The bill was close to $6,000.

Helmsley’s dog, a pampered but reportedly ill-tempered Maltese named Trouble, inherited $12 million from the late hotelier. But unlike that pooch, Kemper’s pets seem content romping in their yard.

“They’re the most loving dogs,” Grady said.

Kemper worked for the federally funded Voice of America, and commonly brought home stray dogs when he returned from overseas assignments.

The executor of Kemper’s estate, longtime friend Karin Anderson, said that when the dogs die, she will probably donate the remainder of the estate to an animal charity because that’s what Kemper would have wanted.

“He really loved animals,” Anderson said. “The man’s heart was so big, it needed its own ZIP code.”