5 Days to Dust

The Notice

This is all that's left. After 7 years of loving each other, countless days and thousands upon thousands of  miles together, all that's left of my big dog, Taddymoor Mirk, is this notice.  They'll try another delivery on Monday between 10 and 2.

The decision to put him down was easy. A brave, stoic dog that rarely showed signs of it, he was in obvious pain from the fist-sized splenic tumor that appeared on x-ray and ultra-sound. Accepting that decision makes me inconsolable at times. I miss my dog. I didn't have time to prepare. There was no warning. He was 11.

3 years old in South Wales

The first time I saw him was on a small patch of wet grass just outside the Millichap's kennel on Hendre Owen Farm in Port Talbot, South Wales. Mirk was 3 at the time with an expression that read; "I love to work all day. Let's go." The 2nd time I saw him was on a bright green hillside fetching a flock of Leah Millichap's registered Texel sheep. Richard warned me to stand back as they barrelled past me to his feet. Mirk was working with older full sister and brother, Jen and Cap the last time I saw him before coming home with his half-brother, Lad. They were gathering 150 lambs off the hill that were sold to a neighbor. Let me put it like this; the dogs were efficient.

6 months later Richard offered to sell Mirk. A full year after that I picked him up at LAX and set about learning to handle a confidently powerful hill dog. I want to be very clear about this; there's nothing quite like it. I never once asked that he didn't give me more. He never failed to bring me sheep anywhere I ever ran him. He could catch a sheep's eye like no other I've owned, and loved to shed and pen. Mirk was fearless. He was graceful. He was gentle.

                                Photo by Gloria Atwater

Sonoma Wine Country Sheepdog Trial, March, 2013

My friend, and one of the classiest veterinarians I've ever known, Dr. Joy Thayer, helped me at the end. It's an hour and a half to her clinic, but I had a bad feeling about this one, and Mirkie deserved the best I could do. I'm not sure which of us I was trying to shield as I stroked his beautiful face leaning close to obscure that final act. I kept telling him he was good as I experienced the last beat of his massive heart. It was 6 months to the day after Price died.

Last September, Mirk competed at Soldier Hollow, Meeker, and the huge, semi-final course of our Oregon national finals. In January, he reveled at his appointed job of exhaust dog at Snowbirds. On big, obstinate ewes that were uncommonly treacherous, he did himself proud 3 months ago at the Wine Country Sheepdog Trial.  This week it took just 5 days to go from my big, handsome boy to heartbreak to dust.