Tomorrow it will have been a year since we lost Rowan. She barreled into my life at the ripe old age of seven whole weeks, and for just a bit over ten years, there was never a dull moment. I still miss her, she was a good dog. We did not have the same relationship as I’ve had with the others, in the beginning there was lots of the Love/Hate thing going on.
I adored Rowan as a pup, she was like a little truck rumbling along. She was brilliant, and good in her crate. But she ate rocks. Consequently, she pooped rocks. I vividly remember picking her up and her belly sounding and feeling like a bag of marbles. Then she started eating poop. Anyone’s. Her own, Redwood’s, it didn’t matter. By the time she was six months old, her ears had gone funny, her coat had started to get curly, she vomited on average three or four times a week, rarely had anything resembling solid stool, and she farted. Bless her little soul, but that dog out farted any other living being I have ever encountered. Her stench is legendary, just ask anyone who lived with her.
Not only was she not the pretty little Rottie I’d dreamed of, there was something drastically wrong with her gut, and even though I felt bad for her and took her to the vet, changed diets, did everything I knew how to do; getting hurled awake in the wee am hours by a large dog harfing next to your bed rapidly lost it’s appeal. To make Rowan’s tummy troubles even more exciting, she had a penchant for eating all sorts of things that were not food. Never had been food, never meant to be food. Rocks, sticks, anything she could chew off a toy, the fake feathery stuff off of an arrow, tennis ball fur, a bullet that she snatched off the floor when the ex was cleaning his guns, literally anything. If she could get it in her mouth, she swallowed it. She nearly died when she ate the stuff off that arrow, she exploded for three days before it made it’s way out. I always swore that if she ever got blocked from eating dumb stuff, I wasn’t doing surgery. Luckily, she never did. She’d just get violently ill for several days, and I’d nurse her back to health and she’d be fine until she did it again.
The first three years of Rowan’s life were rough, for all of us. I loved her, she was a blast to train, but she was just so much. She plowed through life never bothering to notice if she trampled any of us on her way through. Knocked over tables, crashed into people, didn’t matter. Graceful, she was not. She and I battled constantly over who was actually the boss. Eventually, I won, and we worked out a system based on mutual respect. As she got older, we became a better team, and as she learned when and how to use her muscle to intimidate people, she found her place in our little pack. She was the protector, and she loved it.Through the middle of Rowan’s life, her tummy settled down, and our living situation made it impossible for her to eat poop. She became an even more important member of the family, she got to go with me pretty much everywhere and earned her keep as a demo dog for my business and by looking scary whenever I had to be anywhere at night. More than once she came to my rescue with a low growl and a flash of teeth. She was so good at intimidation. Those days, I was never afraid as long as Rowan was with me.
When Rowan was eight years old, she met the great love of her life. Josh. She adored Josh from the day we all met. She was overjoyed when we moved in together and she could spend every day with her dad. Rowan will always have been my girl, my good dog, but Josh, he was her special love. She’d whine and cry and turn herself silly whenever he came home, she’d dutifully lie under his desk while he worked, and he’d sneak her pizza when I wasn’t looking. As Rowan got older, she battled with health problem after health problem. Her spleen ruptured in December of ‘05 and she had to have it removed. Then in January, her back when out and she couldn’t walk. Her back end just wouldn’t work. We filled her up with steroids and took her to have acupuncture, and within three treatments she was up and walking. Not as well ever again, but she got around. We helped her up and down the stairs, she got to where she would just wait and bark at you to come get her. Then in July she had skin cancer on her leg, so surgery again. That surgery was really hard for her, took her two days to come out of the anesthesia. I promised her no more. She enjoyed the rest of the summer and the fall, then in November started limping on her good leg. Her feet were all so arthritic that standing at all was hard, and her back end was unsteady at best, and one front leg was really creaky. When she started limping on the one that was good, I took her in. More steroids, right? No problem. But it was not to be. This time, bone cancer, in her shoulder and moving down her leg. Surgery was not an option, not for a dog who’s other three legs were already in bad shape.
We coddled her. I took her out and let her bite one more “bad guy” so she could feel like a bad ass one more time. We carried her up and down the stairs. She let me know when she fell down one morning trying to eat breakfast. She fell, she cried, and when I got her up, she’d pooped when she fell. She was mortified, and losing control of so much of her body. She was in so much pain every day, that she and I decided it would be ok for her to leave this body. So on December 7th, 2006, we took my good dog in and let her go. She went peacefully, with her dignity intact. I still miss her, and for months could feel her presence still in the house. Like she was just there, in her spot on the couch. I haven’t felt her in a while, and I hope that she is at peace.For everything she was and wasn’t in her life, she will have always been my Good Dog.
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