Goodbye Maggie

This drawing of young Maggie was made by Paula Banks, when she saw that Maggie had passed away.
Maggie came to our family 11 years ago and lived through many ups and downs with us. She was all her life in our house my favorite Blip model, so she might be well known to some of you.
When we found her (in the internet) she was said to be three years old and that she had had six litters, before her owner dumped her at a shelter. What a diamond in the rough he threw away… Maggie was the sweetest dog I ever had. She had a natural intelligence, which brought her to follow my German obedience training with a tolerance and relaxedness of a mother who is observing a too excited child. She learned the orders, and could follow them all, even when given in German language, but mostly it depended upon her wanting, whether she followed suit quickly or rather slowly and reluctantly. As I never liked to walk a dog on the leash, it was for her own safety that she had to learn how to ‘heel’ . That task completed, she had a life of mostly running free, in our big yard, in the mountains on her many hikes with Don and at the beach or in the dunes with me or both of us. Our Reno yard was completely fenced in and she did not like it that much but the yard in Florence was open terrain and she knew its borders exactly. She was always allowed to be outside and she never ran off. She was no hunter but rather a carer, always friendly to other dogs, and to all people who came to our house. She greeted everyone with a little ‘baby’ in her snout, she never shredded any of her toys. Oh my eulogy could go on and on…Being a yellow Labrador she ‘shared’ her silky fur greatly and lovingly with everybody who came near to her. Food was of the greatest importance, but we managed to keep her ‘slimline’ acceptable as she loved all kinds of vegetables, carrots, brokkoli, nuts, etc.
Cheese, raw bones or chicken jerkies were special treats.Only in her last months she started to clean up underneath our dining table and in the kitchen…
She was a fabulous companion, always willing to accompany us, and endured our long drives between Reno and Florence ( nine hours) without the slightest whimper.
She loved to play with other dogs and to run in circles on the beach. To fetch a ball , even into the water, was another thing she loved. In general she had a fabulous health, but when she was about 8 years old she showed signs of arthritis, and since then she got medication for that and some special physical exercise. We limited the ‘roughhousing’ with others a bit and gave her another 5 years with not too much pain or limping. Her fourteenth year was a time of more limping for her, so she got regular pain pills. The last six months she got an injection of a miracle medicine every four weeks, that took all her pains away and turned her back into a seemingly young dog, that was up for long walks, even twice a day. Librela was the name of this miracle medicine. Unfortunately a known side effect of this medicine was that it harmed kidneys and bladder. And those organs had always been her weak spot.
So her incontinece started at the beginning of June and got worse over the course of the last 5 months . I felt so terrible yesterday when the vet said it would be the right thing to put her to sleep. She was totally deaf, but she looked as beautiful as ever, she was alert and loving, she was not limping more than a tiny bit, but the water just kept leaving her body without her having any control over it .Diapers, and a house completely plastered with training pads, every night the running outside twice, and still having her bed, the house and our cars smelling of urine- we just couldn’t handle it anymore. Every new ‘malheur’ made us cringe and she knew how unhappy I often was. I would have wished a more dignified reason for her to die- like a good Indian who dies in a noble fight. But what reason to die can one wish for? We all have to go at one point and no one knows what will cause our demise in the end. Be it noble or miserable, at least she did not suffer great pains. It was more us who suffered in the end. And when we were there at the vet yesterday, she did not know what was going to happen. She was totally absorbed in gobbling down many many treats….

Goodbye my sweet companion. You were a gift from the universe and such an important part of my and our life. We will miss you badly!