The Country Curmudgeon: Requiem for a dachshund
By Roy Hicks
Thursday, July 2, 2009 9:59 AM PDT
Her name was Penny: a black-and-copper dachshund.
We’ve had dachshunds in the family ever since I was a boy. As a youngster I never liked them very much because my grandmother Hicks always had long-haired red ones that she probably inadvertently trained to be obsessively protective, and those darned dogs were really hostile to everyone else. I couldn’t make a move in Grandmother’s house without those mutts barking their fool heads off, snarling “Grrrr!” and showing their teeth.
That changed when my parents got our black-and-tan Freda in early 1955. When this little creature first wobbled out of her bed to meet me as a new puppy about half the size of a rolling pin, I just melted. I eventually learned that, if raised properly, dachshunds are about the most affectionate little dogs there are. My parents later had another one, Schnitzel, who was just as good.
In 1993, my late wife and I came by a darling little dachshund. Dolly was a red miniature who stole our hearts. Dolly was actually Daddy’s dog and slept with me every night. Unhappily, she suffered a severe spine injury and had to be put down about a year later. We were both heartbroken by her loss, but the next January we acquired a brand new black-and-copper dachshund puppy.
Pets have an odd way of naming themselves if you’ll but watch them for awhile. We’d had this new puppy for about two weeks when my wife said “Penny.”
“Why ‘Penny’?” I asked.
“I dunno,” she said. “That just popped into my head.”
Penny was Mommy’s dog for the next 10 years. The two of them were inseparable, rarely more than an arm’s-length apart, and they slept together every night. When Jan died in late 2004, Penny lay down by her bedside and cried. Truthfully, I didn’t think she’d survive but merely give up the ghost for her beloved mistress, but, surprisingly, she didn’t. She merely decided to make the best she could with her widower daddy.
Penny was a sweetheart. She was simply a mindless lump of love, not only to myself but also to all the other various critters I’ve had over the years.
Of late, she’d begun to show the signs of serious age. She was nearly 15 ... not particularly old for a pet, but rather old for a dachshund. Her former copper-colored nose and eyebrows had turned white, and she was becoming slow and lame in getting around the house. She could no longer go outside to relieve herself without help to get up the back-porch steps. I sensed she could not last much longer, but, so long as she was merely awkward and not hurting, I kept her as long as I could.
The day finally came a few weeks ago when she not only couldn’t get around the house but merely lay down and moaned with some sort of severe intestinal pain I could do nothing to relieve. Heartachingly, I knew I was going to have to put her down the next day, but, with that eerie sense animals sometimes seem to have, she spared me. That night she lay down on the living room floor and died. I buried her in our backyard garden with three of our other pets.
There’s a poem called “The Rainbow Bridge” that describes how we and our dear friends may eventually be reunited. That’s a consolation to anyone who has ever had to bid farewell to one of these beloved creatures.
Roy Hicks, a Payette resident, writes a weekly column for the Argus Observer. Comments or questions for Mr. Hicks can be directed to: Roy Hicks, Argus Observer Newsroom; 1160 S.W. Fourth St., Ontario, OR 97914
