Don't Drink and Drive

***Always a rockstar; April, 2004***

Bernie's better today, cough all gone and she's up and around on her own. I should add that before being sedated Monday, she was very robust, relatively speaking. Walks, up steps, down steps, curious, head out the window in the car (photo, June 04) . . . then Valium changed all that. Maybe the headline for today should be, Say No to Drugs. Regardless, she's improving.

She caught a ground squirrel once, killed it with a sharp shake of her head, then wandered for about twenty minutes with it dangling from her mouth while she tried to find a suitable place to bury it, presumably for a snack sometime. This was in Tahoe, in the mountains about a mile from Heavenly Ski Resort and thus a mile from where Sonny Bono smashed into a tree. Bernie and I lived at the base of this area for three years. She was between three and six those years. I'd mountain bike while she'd run like mad. As hard of a time as I had catching her when she was loose, she always wanted me in her sight, so I never had to worry too much. I'd ride, she'd run. The ground squirrel catch was amazing, Bernie ten or twenty feet behind it, full speed, down a culvert hill in the mountains. Her center of gravity was so low her tummy hair was dragging on the ground. I couldn't believe it when she caught up to that thing. I couldn't believe it when she snapped her head to kill it, like she did it everyday. Instincts are amazing.

She sniffed out a watering hole early in our days in that area. It was small, 10x10 or so, but a few feet deep. Hidden underbrush, she'd go in it after we'd spent an hour or two frolicking among the pines and rocks. She'd just soak, drink, cool off. It was a favorite spot of mine to snap photos of her. Prints, I have them somewhere. I love animal behavior, watching it, seeing them seal off the world in their peace bubble. She's peaceful today, a walk up and down the street in the warm sunshine and crisp air our frolicking thus far. I haven't decided whether I'll take her to Petco with me today. I've never been in there without her.

Happy New Year's Eve!

Limping Along

Bernie has lived in Lake Tahoe and Sacramento, California; Stateline and Garndnerville, Nevada; and St. Paul, Minnesota. She has swam in Lake Tahoe, the Pacific Ocean, the Mississippi River, the Gulf of Mexico, Pleasant Lake (photo, June 07), and a host of other doggie watering holes up the coast of California, during our move from there to here. She's never at more peace than when swimming, drinking water all the way.

I found out Bernie loves water in the strangest way. One day, once again, Bernie had gotten out of the sights of Elizabeth and I. We called and called, no Bernie. Finally, we spotted her in a fountain pool on our rental property in Stateline: She was swirling around in circles, intaking water and spitting it into the air over and over, creating her own fountain! I'll touch on other Bernie + water stories in later posts, including why Bernie used to come home green, very green.

Last night was rough. She coughed (never does that) all night, and her gait is awful but improving somewhat. Amazingly, an x-ray taken Monday showed virtually no arthritis in her hips. However, the narrowing of her spinal column has plagued her moderately the past couple years. Nerves get pinched, and impulses to her hind legs are blocked. Her sensation today is poor, thus her hind legs aren't functioning properly. We did, however, go for a couple successful short walks today. Her coughing has ceased (I think she inhaled a piece of rice last night), so hopefully with a good night's rest for both of us tonight, tomorrow will be a better day. It pains me that our trip to the vet left her worse off, for the time being. All's well that ends well, though, so hopefully she'll be her fully functional self soon--like, tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

Welcome to Bernie's Blog!

It's actually Chad's blog, because though Bernie is an amazing dog, she has yet to master reading or writing--and there's no real use learning how to type if you can't do either of those. She knows this.

Fourteen years ago I had an 11-year-old Old English Sheepdog, Poochie. She was the family dog, and she made the move from St. Louis to Lake Tahoe with me. In September 1994, we were living in a rented house with friend Elizabeth P. on a beautiful meadow that led to the lake. It truly is a wonderful spot in a basin loaded with them, particularly as the sun set behind the meadow's bordering mountains. During the fall, cattle roamed that expansive acreage, good times for a herding dog like Poochie. Instincts are amazing.

Call it instinct or something else, somehow at this time I ended up with a scrawny, black, people-hating dog. Named Barney the first nine months of her life under others' watch, upon adoption she became "Bernie," lest I have a dog named after that stupid purple dinosaur. The first day I had her, she did two amazing things: I released her into the meadow, off-leash with Poochie, and Bernie ran full speed, several months of (literally) caged energy bursting from within . . . run, run, run! . . . Then she did it, Elizabeth and I both saw it. She jumped, leaped in full stride--she looked like she'd been shot out of a cannon, bulleting through the air for a solid ten feet, at a height of ten feet off the ground. Our jaws dropped as we watched. It was a beautiful exhibition of happiness, free at last! Elizabeth and I laughed. Bernie ran.

I had to catch her. I caught her, finally. She bit my hand (that's the second amazing thing). Blood. "Bad Bernie." Pinned-back ears. Tail between the legs but now homebound. I wanted to return my purchase to the Lake Tahoe Humane Society. I didn't, and that purchase turned into 14+ years, or some 5,200 days, of love, fun, and fascination. Best $50 I ever spent.

She's on the couch now, I put her there, her sleeping off a Valium buzz (see photo at top). I sit and she sleeps. We've done this before. Today, though, is different from every other. I was told today to expect only one more month with my kindred spirit. One more month, they say.