IT WAS SHE WHO CHOSE ME

Many of us have owned dogs that were stepping stones to the dog we have today.  They taught us something about ourselves, and perhaps a little bit or more about how to handle a dog. Allow me to take you down "memory lane" and tell you about my "Kid".

“Kid” was "Pheasant Ridge’s Sydney’s Kid".  Late one winter, I was at a sportsman’s show with my hunting buddy when we met a breeder that we both knew and (of course) we started to chat.  Next thing I knew the breeder said, “I’m moving West.  You don’t know anyone that wants a runt three-year-old Brittany do you?”  Frank and I both pointed to  me.

I visited the kennel and saw the dog.  She came over, said a hello in dog manner and hung around just enough to let me think that she was special.  I hummed and hawed and said “Let me think about it.”  I drove home trying to talk myself out of it.  I already had a large German Shorthair at home who was getting along in years.  I figured that he still had a few years in him. 

In the fifties, my first dog was an American Cocker Spaniel.  Oh, was Ricky a hunter!  The problem was that I didn’t know what I had or what to do about it!  He would venture down to the alders by the brook that ran along the edge of our field.  Occasionally, he would come back to the house with a muskrat-dead as a door-nail.  Looking back, I think he was into woodcock.  At that young age, I didn’t understand  that I was attached to that dog in so many ways.

Decades later, the attachment was lingering in me and had its hooks in the little Brittany “Kid”.  I continued to wrestle over the matter when the phone rang and the breeder wanted to know what I decided.  I told him where I was on the idea and he suggested that I take the dog and try her out for a while—to see if she would fit into the house with the other (2) dogs.

The next day I was at his house and walked through the gate and into the dog yard.  I stooped over and said, “Kid”.  She ran across the yard and leaped into my arms.  It could have been collusion between Kid and the breeder, but I was already hooked.  She chose me.  I was a little unsure about the “bond” as we drove out of the yard.  Was it real?

A few hours later, I was visiting a friend who  was in Hospice care.  Somehow, Kid got out of the vehicle and started running.  There was lots of traffic nearby.  Others were calling to her, but she was ignoring them.   I knelt and called her name.  She came like a shot and almost crawled inside my jacket.  It was a relief and a “sign” for me.  Things were looking up!

Born To Be Wild

There was a problem  at the Swetthaus however.  Both my wife AND Kid felt like they were the "reigning queen".  My wife would exert her matriarchal influence, (and so I learned later) Kid would go and pee in her closet.  (“So there!  Take that!)  To make a long story short, we got through that contest, but my wife never liked the dog.  Lucky for me, because she didn’t “spoil” Kid.  Time went on, and Kid became more and more “mine” —or perhaps I became more and more “hers”.

When she would point a bird, there wasn’t much “style” or “pizzazz”.  She was like a wind-up toy that finally used up all its spring.  She would just stop.  If you weren’t paying attention, you’d miss it.  It didn’t take too much to teach her something, but if you put pressure on her, she’d do the Brittany thing of acting like you were killing her.

When my brother died, she provided comfort and companionship in the woods.  When my Shorthair passed away, she filled a void that had been growing due to his ’canine cognitive disorder’.   Kid would visit my aged parents next-door, and let them make of her.  She played that card very well.

Queen of the Nile

Kid was a canoe-sized Brittany.  I would put her in my canoe and comfortably paddle from shore.  She would put her feet on the gunnel and because of her diminutive size, there were never concerns about tipping over.  (She hated to swim, but she would in a “Kid emergency”.)  My life was such a commotion at the time that I never bothered to correct that.  I paid for it more than once!   She was a pleasure to hunt with alone.  She stayed close enough in the woods that words were not necessary.

My wife didn’t like her riding in the front seat (think dog-hair).  But somehow she did  when we were alone.  I kept her groomed with a “puppy cut” so the “hair issue” wasn’t too bad.  It made her more or less a “wash and wear” dog.

Last pheasant just before Christmas

Yes, she taught me a lot about myself, and some things about dogs.

One day, I returned from a business trip and she was lying in her bed, ill.  She would vomit and looked distressed.  I put her in the car and took her to the vet’s office where we ran several tests.  The answer came back and verified the vet’s preliminary thoughts.  Her kidney s were failing.  We reviewed the options available and they were dismal.  I held her in my arms and could feel her wanting to go.  ("Just let me go boss.")

At the vet’s office, I held her with my hand over her heart.  I had to be with her at the end.  We had “said our goodbyes” in the truck—if a man and dog can do such a thing.  Unable to speak, and barely able to breathe, I felt her (big) heart slow and finally stop in her little body.

They let me out the side door.  I was sobbing like a schoolgirl whose heart had been broken.  It was pitiful.  However, in spite of the deep sorrow I was grateful that she had been a gift in my life, and it was she who chose me.

Quietly Heading to the Rainbow Bridge