Roxy

Roxy.  The original Aussie.  The puppy we chose from a litter of pups because she was friendly and pretty.    Like Jake, it felt like she would live forever.  15 years old for an Aussie is really old, but in the end, not even Rox was immortal.

When we first moved to PA and were still living in the Residence Inn (waiting for our home to be built), the kids had the idea that we needed a dog.  We were moving to 11 acres, and John was going to be on call a lot.  We took several "which dog is best for you" quizzes online, and every time we received the same result--an Australian Shepherd.  The kids developed a whole presentation for John to convince him that we needed a dog.  In the end, he caved.

Back in 2006, dogs were advertised by word of mouth, or in the paper, so I started searching some papers online.  The only Aussie I could find was advertised near Carlisle, a good two hour drive away.  The kids and I loaded up in the van, and with directions from the woman selling the pups, we finally found her farm.  It was a pretty crazy situation--she had two female dogs, and one new male who didn't have all of his toes.  One of the pups carried the genetic trait and didn't have a toe or two either--she offered him to me for even less than the $300 price tag of his siblings.  Knowing what I know now about Aussies, I'm amazed that we could just show up and the dogs were good with us being there.  We really could've chosen any one of the pups, but there was something very soft looking in Rox, and so we chose her.  She wasn't ready to go yet, and we weren't in our house yet, but the day after we got our keys, I drove to pick her up.  She wasn't bathed and was covered in fleas, so I waited while the woman flea dipped her.  I asked for her papers, but the woman very slyly avoided my request every time.

Rox was a darling pup--she was so happy and friendly--but she was our guinea pig dog.  We didn't have a crate for her so she just wandered the house freely, chewing up anything she could get her teeth on.  I assumed she would always stay with us like a good Velcro dog, but when left to her own devices, she would wander the neighborhood.  Her favorite devil activity was to find a person in a yard or on a walk and run circles around them while barking at them.  At these moments, she would feign deafness, refusing to listen to me!

She was Ethan's dog from the beginning.  He would go and sit out in the grass, and she would come over and put her head on his shoulder.  They could sit there like that forever.  And he had a way of running his fingers through her fur that would calm her down immediately.

After so many people asking where we had gotten her, we decided to try breeding her.  The first litter was a mutt litter, because she had wandered off and we were clueless, but after that, she produced some really beautiful dogs.  And she was a great mother.  When she had a newborn litter, and we approached her, she would hover over the pups with her body and show us some teeth.

I like to remember how Rox walked.  She had a way of swishing her hips so she looked like she was prancing.  Her unbobbed tail with its wisps of fur didn't hurt the effect either.  And even when she was nearing the end, she would frolic like a pup for the first few steps out of the car.

Despite all my attempts, Rox would never fetch a ball.  I remember in the beginning putting the ball in her mouth and then rewarding her with a treat.  Yeah, she was no fool.  She loved a good ham bone, and she was the matriarch of the pack, and she wasn't gonna be chasin' no rubber balls.

A few years ago, when our lives were falling apart, we moved into an apartment and we had too many dogs.  Ethan and Rebecca offered to take Rox.  She lived the life of Riley with them.  No other dogs for competition, constant crumbs falling to the floor from the babies, and regular, easy walks around the park. Blindness and deafness moved in quickly after the age of 12, but somehow, she always knew exactly where Rebecca was....and in the end, only really listened to her.

They gave her a great retirement, but with the loss of senses and a seizure and her inability to move much at all, we knew the end was near.  On Halloween morning, Ethan found her on the floor, unable to move.  He carried her into the vet where they offered to do an MRI to see if she had a brain tumor, but we made the call to let her go.  Ethan and Rebecca had given her a great life, and it was time to close the chapter.  Once again, I received the text "Rox is gone", and I was reduced to tears, thinking of so many happy memories and knowing there are no more to make with her.  Ethan buried her on Rebecca's family's farm, a fitting place for our little farm pup.