Another example of doggie intelligence.  Jed the border collie knows how to beat the heat.

Jake returned home from Another Freaking Army Mission and, predictability, I slept like a baby.

You’d think I’d never been away from my husband before. But we spent six months apart a few years ago and I slept fine. Then again, that was P.B. — pre blog.  We also had two incredible, protective dogs then.  Now, no dogs.

So we’ve decided to borrow a dog once Jake leaves  – a ferocious barking bordie collie named Cassie.  Cassie belongs to Jake’s parents. Cassie is an exceptional barker, a pursuit she undertakes with alacrity.  She will be my eyes and ears during the long, lonely nights.

I will sleep easy. Well, easier, anyway.

The young couple who accidentally hit Cowboy  a few weeks ago — the boyfriend stopped by this morning to pay his condolences. I’d like to think that any normal, sane person would do the same, but I know that might also be a tad optimistic. A lot of people don’t want to be reminded of bad stuff. Not that that makes them bad people, but it can be very hard to face the consequences.  I can only hope that if I ever find myself in a similar dreadful situation, I will conduct myself like this couple here.

Turns out this guy is in the military, like Jake.  He served in Iraq in 2008.  It’s funny, during the haze and confusion of that awful night, I thought he had a military comportment: “No, ma’am, yes, ma’am. No, we’re not leaving you, ma’am. Let me help you with your dog, ma’am.”  (There’s no getting around being called “ma’am” in the South, especially around military guys. I’ve given up. It’s like a speech tic.) The couple stayed with me until there was nothing left to stay for.

After getting home from his deployment, this young man’s girlfriend had their baby, so he quit active duty and joined the National Guard.  He found a job at a Target distribution center in the area, where he loaded boxes onto trucks for ten hours a day, four days a week. He called it “back breaking labor,” but he said this with a smile. In fact, he’s the kind of guy who doesn’t speak without smiling. Even when he spoke about Cowboy, he wore a subtle grin.

But then yesterday, he told us whilst smiling, he found out he and fifteen other guys at the distribution center got laid off.  (Translation: If Target is still laying off guys at a distribution center, it means consumers still aren’t buying affordable trinkets which means we’re still in a recession.)

When the guy saw Jake in his military uniform, he asked about the service. Jake told him he’s a company commander, and a Captain the Reserves, headed to Afghanistan in a month. They got to talking, and the young man told Jake he needs to find a job immediately because he’s the primary breadwinner of his young family, so Jake put him in touch with his unit, where this guy has decided to train to become a drill sergeant, and switch from the Guard to the Reserves.  Jake also offered to let the guy come work for him building agricultural fences until Jake leaves in a few weeks.

All in all, not a bad ending to this unhappy story:  They helped us when we lost Cowboy, and now we get to help them.

Tonight I moved Cowboy’s bed from its corner near the front door in the living room.  I removed the pillow’s giant cover, and threw it in the laundry room. The cover was soiled and dirty.  I was never that good about consistently cleaning Cowboy’s bed, partly because I’m lazy and partly because he was always dirty.

And now I don’t know what to do with the dog bed.  Washing it feels like washing him away.  The dirt on it came from Cowboy’s belly, from the dried mud on his paws, and, yes, even a little bit of deer poop under his neck. That’s who Cowboy was.  He was a dirty dog because he was a working dog.

I’ll never foget the look in his eyes when I found him on the road.  He was scared.  Not from being hit,  but from breaking the rules. He knew he messed up big.  He didn’t want to disappoint us because that’s the kind of dog he was.

And now we’re left with a lifetime of memories and a dirty dog bed.  Jake removed his water bowl and food bowl tonight. I’m not sure where he put them. Maybe downstairs. With the rest of the storage.  Or maybe he put them in a special Cowboy place I don’t know about yet.  I hope it’s the latter.

It will be a long time before this house feels like a home again. Thank God for June.

We found a bottle of wine wrapped with this lovely rendering of Cowboy on our front porch when we arrived home last night.  Little Cowboy touched so many people’s lives.  Thank you, Becca….

Jake, June and I spent the last three days attending army briefs in a city I shant disclose. I have never attended Army briefings but Jake has to go to them all the time. The briefings were at times inspiring and educational and so boring I had to fight to stay awake. (And if you fall asleep during an army briefing, do they make you do fifty pushups?) We were briefed in legal issues, taxes, finances, family/child readiness,  how to make plans for when the soldier comes home, etc, etc, basically, the weekend was a way for families to get their heads in the game and remind them that the army’s sprawling bureaucracy has entire wings and departments that do nothing but help families on the home front. If I blow a tire while Jake is gone, I’m calling the Army before AAA.

We also learned about the deployment itself. I can’t share any of the details, but I can say that as far as deployments to Afghanistan goes, this one sounds decent.  Jake will be in a “safe” location, far from enemy lines working closely with Afghans as an advisor.  In other words, we won’t be kicking in doors and going on nightly patrols. He’ll be schooling Afghans in all ways American, like how to properly heat Hot Pockets?

And because neither of us really want to hang around our house with Cowboy gone, I’m stealing Jake away for another few days for a quick trip up to New York. I’ll be posting sporadically, but I won’t be back to work until Friday.

Until then….

Thanks as always for reading and for your thoughts regarding Cowboy.

We’re grieving the loss of our beloved dog Cowboy this week. Thanks, everyone, who’s reached out to us. I haven’t been able to respond individually because it’s just too hard.

I’m not very good at writing eulogies so I won’t even try. But Cowboy was one of those rare and special dogs who come around once a lifetime. We’ll never have another dog like him.  He was sensitive, intuitive, gentle and loving. He was in a class by himself. He was a classy dog. He had better manners than some people. He loved to work (herding cattle was his specialty).  He occasionally rolled in deer poop. He enjoyed catching snowballs in his mouth.  He loved to run.  He set the example for our other two dogs, also taken from us prematurely.  I know of at least three couples who went out and got a dog after spending time with Cowboy.  As my mother-in-law said, Cowboy was a legend.  To know him was to love him.  He touched so many people’s lives, most of all our own.

Cowboy has been a part of our story since the very beginning.  The day I met Jake eight years ago in Miles City, Montana, was the day I met Cowboy  and it’s been Jake and Cowboy ever since. Where one goes, the other is close behind, wagging his little tail with a big smile on his face. Even the ladies at the bank are going to miss him.

And now he’s gone. In an instant.  Eleven years, just gone.  As Jake is prone to say, we’re never promised tomorrow and never have I felt this more than I do today.

Where a lot of people would have kept driving, the young couple who hit him had the courage to knock on my door right after it happened.  Cowboy was alive when I found him.  We picked him up and laid him in the back of my car.  He died in my arms.

As cruel as his death was,  I’m so thankful he was tended to right after it happened. He didn’t have to suffer in the cold by himself by the side of the road, cars whizzing by, hearing me screaming for him but too weak to respond.  He was cared for and loved up until and beyond his very last breath.

Cowboy, we know you’re up in doggie heaven sitting on a throne made of raw meat and dog bones, but down here, Bunga,we will carry you in our hearts forever.

There will never be another Cowboy.

There will never be another one like you.

We had a terrible tragedy this week.

Our beloved dog Sunshine died.

It happened two days after I arrived in Montana in a horrifying accident that happened on one of Jake’s fencing jobs.

Jake takes the dogs to work with him practically everyday.  We do this under the belief that dogs are happiest and most engaged when they get to run outside in big empty fields while Jake builds fences for ranchers and horse people.   As far as a dog’s life goes, it can’t be beat.

But on this particular day, for reasons we can’t comprehend, Sunny didn’t get out of the way when Jake put his skid steer in reverse. This is absolutely shocking because the skid steer moves quite slowly and makes a very loud beeping noise whenever it backs up.  She’s been around the Bobcat a million times.  She  knows what it is and she’s familiar with the sounds it makes.  We don’t know if she was in a dead sleep or engrossed in eating the remains of an animal or rolling in cow poop (which she does with disgusting regularity), but Jake suddenly heard a blood gurgling cry. He immediately cut the engine, jumped out of the Bobcat and saw Sunny running away.  He chased after her where she collapsed under his truck.  He crawled under the truck in order to grab her and take her to the vet when she convulsed suddenly and died. Cowboy, meanwhile, was so frightened he ran off into the woods.

Jake sat there horror stricken for a long time.  I can’t imagine what this must have been like for him.  His wife and child had just left for a month and one of his dogs just died at his feet. After twenty minutes or so, he called me in Montana and told me the news.

I haven’t been able to write about this until now because this was an accident that could have been avoided.  We are responsible for our dog’s death in that we allowed her free reign on what can be a  dangerous job site.  The lifestyle we try to  provide for our dogs — freedom to run, freedom to be dogs — is the lifestyle that killed her.  Had we kept Sunshine home or confined to a fenced yard she’d still be alive.

I’m becoming a little too used to all the animal deaths we’re confronted with — Sunshine, Mrs. Knadler, our little dog Junebug — and I’m ashamed to admit I haven’t even cried.  I suppose her absence will hit me once I return home and she’s not there to stare at me with hearts shooting out of her eyes.

Cowboy’s heart is broken without her.