DeClove

I miss my little dog of 12 years.  She was my girls' childhood dog and the bearer of so many good memories.  Now one girl is grown, almost married.  The other is almost grown.  The passing of Clover signifies the passing of time.  I have never been good at this.  Here goes, Dee:

I remember driving out of Austin to get you as a puppy from a breeder-Rachel researched carefully and we had to have a pure bred Border Collie.  The man was  a rancher and was a little rough with you but you were so sweet and I believe the only girl.  We chose you-or maybe you chose us.  You were covered in mud with nasty ears and worms.  Eric promptly bathed you when we got home and we got you to the vet and all taken care of.

Right away we knew you were going to be a handful-Border Collies are very intelligent and high strung.  We wanted a smart dog.  Eric and I would wake up at 5 am. discussing whose turn it was to get up and take care of you.  It was like having a newborn all over again.  You ate our kitchen table legs-yep, that's right.  We had to put chicken wire around our baby trees out back and set up electric fence around all our flower beds.  We called it the DMZ.  We did not take it down until you were around 6 years old.  You were a wild thing-tried to herd everything in sight-us, other dogs, whatever moved.  You were bred for it.  We always talked about finding a random field of sheep and letting you loose in it.  I wish we had done it.

The girls were young, so we finished school around noon.  They would leash you up and run out the front door screaming "THE HILL".  The hill is now covered in houses.  But it was open and magical back then and we let you off leash to roam freely.  You would run full speed, pulling the girls behind you and we would roam the hill and let you be free for a while.  I remember one day we found a piece of pipe that the construction workers had left out and I put you and both girls in it and rolled you down the hill and the girls screamed and you peed all over them.  It was a wonderful memory.  They also used to leash you to their scooters and let you pull them down the sidewalk.  Probably not the brightest idea.  The first time we took you out on the boat, we put you on while Eric was backing it into the water and you promptly jumped off the back of it into the lake-no fear of the water then!  We took you to the lake many times-once you got in, you loved to swim.  We even took you to a hole in the neighborhood that filled up with water after a rain and you swam around like crazy.  Don't know why it was funny, but it made me laugh.  We used to take you on the nature trails and Turkey Trail-you just loved being outdoors, smelling all the smells, soaking it all up.  So did we.  The girls used to sneak you into the neighborhood pool late at night so you could go for a swim.  That was bad, but I let them do it anyway.  They loved you so much.

One of the big things they used to do was set up obstacle courses for you in the garage-boxes, etc...for you to work your way around.  It was pretty funny.  When you were smaller, they would get a big blue tub from the garage, get in their swimsuits and give you a bath.  You had such a good life, little dog.

You loved your squeaky ball and we probably threw it way too much, contributing to your arthritis.  However, in our defense, we could not even sit outside without you squeaking it mercilessly until someone threw it.  You loved it so much.

There is no possible way to record 12 years of life here but some random memories are:

Taking you upstairs (a big "no no") with a bow around your neck for Rachel's birthday.  Bringing you in the house and putting a Santa hat on you for Christmas pictures.  You and Daffodil playing through the broken screen-you sticking your nose in and her swiping at it with her paw.  Daffodil attacking you when you would come in at night.  You getting impaled on the fence-ugh, that was awful.  Our African American nicknames for you and Daff:  DeClove and FoDill.  All our silly songs we used to make up about you.  The girls will know.  Taking you to Colorado-that is probably where you got your death tick-but you loved it so-the cabin (Squirrel!!!)-the snow-the bears-the stream-all of it.  Oh my gosh!!!!!  The very first time we took you to Colorado and we had you in the cage in the back of the Expedition and you had a HUGE blowout right in the middle of a construction zone where we could not pull over for about 30 minutes-we had all the windows rolled down with our heads out!!!!!!!  You trying to eat the water that came out of the hose, or sprinklers-snapping at it over and over again.  The girls hiding your ball in all the leaves they raked up and making you look for it.  Making you homemade doggie biscuits from a kit I got them for Christmas-like I said, you had a good life.  They loved you so much.  They used to bring the neighbor dogs over so you could have friends to play with.

I know the girls will remember so many more things about you.  They spent much more time with you than I did.  But the one thing that melts my heart that I will miss more than ever is looking into your loyal, loving brown eyes.  You could get me to do anything with those eyes.  I miss you more than I can say, Dee.