It’s hard work being a dog...
This is my dog, Cinnamon — a “red-tri” colored Australian
Shepherd who was born on December 25, 1995 at Silkgrass
Kennels in Cassadaga, New York, with help from Rachael Lapp. His mother was
a black-tri named “Spring” (Silkgrass Beauty of Spring 1990), and
Cinnamon is the spitting image of his father, “Quigley.”
Cinnamon joined me in March of 1996, at 3 months old. I later understood
this was perfect timing, as he was still a young pup, but he was old enough
that his mother had taught him to do his business “outside the den,” and
so it only took 3 days to housebreak him! (Thanks, Spring!) This is
probably in part due to the fact that he’s incredibly smart, too.
(Sure, all dog-owners say that of their precious poopsie-woopsie, eh?) ;-)
But all joking aside, anyone who’s found this page through the Australian
Shepherd Web-Ring already knows just how truly brilliant these dogs are.
Cinnamon was truly a blessing, and an all-around “good dog.” Never
destructive, and always eager to be pet, he spent his final too-short days
as a therapy
dog, visiting a nursing home and kids with socio-emotional and pervasive
development disorders. He accompanied me to highland games, fife & drum
musters, practices, Sunday drives, afternoon hikes, and out on errands. He
just liked being with me and meeting people.
Happy to just be with me
It took me a long time to figure out what a “velcro Aussie” was, until it
dawned on me that it was Cinnamon. Wherever I would go, he would stick by my
side. If I got up and went into another room, he’d get up and follow. He’d
park himself outside the bathroom door to wait for me, at the foot of my bed,
and insisted on coming in to the small room while I practiced loud instruments,
just so he could be with me. (And if he wasn’t in the
room, he was waiting just outside it). He was my shadow. Some people might
call that clingy, I called it loyal.
When he was a young dog, a friend told
another friend, “I’ve never
seen a dog that resembled its owner more.”
I took it as a compliment, naturally, because he was just so gentle, smart,
generous, loving, beautiful and everything I hoped to be as well.
He was above playing fetch, or tug-of-war, or other such “dog” games, and
would much rather sit on my feet, run laps around the yard, banking for invisible
sheep, or accompany me in singing the “Marriage of Figaro” or some other such
silly nonsense. He understood the joke, and wagged, happily filling in the
parts where I prompted him to “sing.” He would warble and make funny talking
noises, and at one point, could even say “roll over” as a syllabic “ro-ro-ro”
(although his entire life he refused to do roll
over even once.) He tried to talk, and I could see the frustration when he
couldn’t form his lips that way (he sure came close a few times!), but
for everything else, nothing could tell him he wasn’t a person. He understood
humor, and would play pranks and jokes on us, smiling slyly and wagging, and
flirted by wiggling his eyebrows while smiling and warbling sweet nothings
to me.
Except for the talking, which could hardly be considered noise, given the
happy nature of it, he was a very quiet dog... but it still felt empty and
too quiet in the days after he death, knowing he wasn't with us. Just
knowing he was waiting for me, hearing him quietly pant or lick, or even his
gentle sometimes-snoring was something I’d long gotten used to and counted
on for well-being. Nails clicking against the wall in the middle of the night
were common, as he seemed to be dreaming happy thoughts and remembering how
he used to do fly-bys and would race around the yard or park with the sheer
happiness of being free to run.
Cinnamon — my beautiful friend
It was the loss of this freedom that started tugging on our hearts earlier
this year, when he started favoring his back right leg. It
was chalked up to arthritis, and he was given some pain-killers, but he continued
favoring it until he ceased using it altogether. Finally, one day, it was merely
dangling, useless. We made an appointment for x-rays, and continued through
the weekend helping him as best we could maneuver on 3 legs. He was less than
happy about it, ears down, only perking up briefly at the prospect of going
somewhere or seeing somebody.
He would lay in the same spot all day, and wasn’t
interested in eating. He ate because we asked him to, but that was the only
reason. When we got his x-ray results back, it was worse than I feared. A
bone tumor had invaded his hip socket, and weakened the bone so much that the
ball of his femur had shattered. His options were to amputate, possibly buying
him some “comfort time” if you want to call it that, but it was
so high up the options were limited, and the tumor had probably already begun
to spread system-wide. I can’t help but second-guess myself, even though
I know there was little else we could do, but the lonely mornings and middle-of-the-nights
when I can’t simply reach over the bed and pet him makes it hard to
still see it that way.
In 11 years of ups and downs, marriage and divorce, 6 different apartments/houses,
3 states, a million different jobs, 3 pipebands, 4 fife & drum corps, 8
cars, 5 roommates, 3 colleges, 3 degrees, 3 sets of families to visit for the
holidays, 50 lbs gained, 75 lbs lost, hikes down to the lake, hikes through
the deer brush, full-moon dancing in the backyard at 3 am just because it’s
a gorgeous night, weekly lawn-mowing, and thousands upon thousands of miles
of road-trips, errands, Sunday-drives, therapy dog classes, trips to the pet
store and going through the car-wash, he’s been by my side, and the one constant
I could count on. As I look around the room at furniture, possessions, things...
there isn’t a single one of them that has been with me as long as he has, nor
has meant as much.
Coming home, putting the key in the door, and knowing nobody is there on
the other side to greet me with wagging tail and loving eyes is the hardest
part. I still look for him as I come through the door, willing him to be there
as he would be, tail wagging, sniffing me to see where I’d been, and
what I brought back for him. People tell me time will help and heal, but how
could I possibly feel anything but bittersweet about the loss of the best thing
that ever happened to me? I have so many happy memories I will always cherish,
but the part that hurts the most is that I won’t be able to make any more with
him.
When Cinnamon's breeder told us several years ago that she was discontinuing her program, I knew I would have
to look around and do my homework to find another whom I trusted and believed in, would be open and honest with me about possible
health issues, and carefully planned their litters. After searching everywhere and corresponding with several, I finally decided
on one a year or more ago, but due to not having litters very often, I figured I'd need to get on the next waiting list. Cinnamon
must have known how much I needed comforting and a gentle tongue to lick my tears, because fate opened the door for us to a beautiful 9-week old puppy
who was sweet, affectionate, incredibly smart, and still available.
Sunny ("SunSpot") is not Cinnamon, (she proved that by learning to roll-over 3 days after we got her) but we never
expected her to be. Cinnamon was one of a kind, and this puppy has awfully big shoes to fill. She's a bit more independent, a bit
more rambunctious, a bit less housebroken, but she's got the familiar Aussie personality that tells us she'll be spectacular in her
own right. So, I need to start looking to the future, and thank you for being so special, so loyal, for being the beautiful dog you
were, in gentle loving spirit as well as soft velvet fur. Goodbye my sweet friend, you will always be my first love, and can’t ever be forgotten.
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