She was the first pet John and I owned together, four months after we got married, two months after we moved to Nashville. We got her from the Humane Society in February 1990. She was the only dog not barking her head off in the kennels. She stood down by the fence nearest the people and looked at everyone interestedly. I knew she would be perfect for us; she loved people, she was calm in the midst of chaos, and she had a gentle nature. We took her home and spent the next four days trying to think of the right name for her. We considered Daisy, but settled on Dixie as she was the symbol of our new home in the South. She got used to the name right away. She was just out of puppyhood, fully grown and housebroken though still inclined to do a little chewing. She liked to sleep with us in the bedroom, but I used to stagger into her when getting up to use the bathroom during the night and eventually she preferred to sleep on her blanket in the living room where she wouldn't get kicked.
We had to learn how to own a dog that big. At 68 pounds she had ways of letting you know how she felt about something. She always knew where she wanted to go for a walk, for instance, and if you tried to get her to go another way she'd simply sit down on the sidewalk with her back to you, ears on the listen for how you were handling it. You could tug and cajole all you wanted. Once you gave in she stood up, wagged her tail to show no hard feelings, and set off down the sidewalk. She adored going for a ride in the car. Since she was a former stray we had to teach her to stay in the house or in the yard. The first two years we owned her she'd bolt through an open door or dig under her fence in the back yard. If she escaped the only way to get her to come home was to go after her in the car and open the door. It worked every time. After a couple of years she stopped going walkabout.
She didn't think much of us getting a cat in 1994 and another one in 1995. The cats both fell in love with Dixie, but Dixie wasn't having any of that. She'd get up and move if either of them paid too much attention to her. After a while, though, she got used to the cats' adoration and allowed them to snuggle her and play with her tail. I have several cute photos of Natasha and Dixie sleeping together.
She loved being outside in her big yard when the weather was good. If it was too hot and humid or rainy she planted herself inside the air-conditioned house. She loved the yearly snowfalls, burying her snout in the snow and snorting wildly with pleasure, tail wagging furiously. She adored hunting for field mice in long grass. Once, she caught a mole when we were out walking in the woods. After digging furiously for several minutes she pounced and grabbed it. She held it in her mouth for a few seconds, then spit it out with a distinctive "pflah!" Apparently it tasted pretty bad. For the rest of the walk she licked her jaws and smacked her lips trying to get rid of the taste. I laughed my head off.
She didn't like swimming, or getting her tummy wet. We took her up to John's family's cabin on Pine Lake in Wisconsin a couple of times. If we went swimming she would wade out a foot or two and then bark at us in her funny, half-howling way. "Aroo-wooh-wooh!" she would say, and we'd laugh and beckon to her from the deeper water. But she wouldn't swim out to us. Water was not her element.
She didn't fetch, or play catch, or run around by herself. We tried and tried to teach her to fetch, and she did learn to chase biscuits when we threw them, or play tug-o-war with a cloth toy. But she didn't stick with it. Either she wanted to eat it or she would wait to see why we weren't giving it to her. For a dog with a Shepherd face and a Golden Retriever color she had no hunting or fetching instincts at all.
She was a truly beautiful dog, the kind you can't resist petting and exclaiming over. Her fur was soft and silky, a bright gold with a thick white undercoat that she shed spring and fall. Her face was particularly sweet, with big brown eyes and soft, floppy ears. She was the acknowledged queen of every neighborhood we lived in. Everyone knew Dixie. Early on we resigned ourselves to a lifetime of being known not by our names but as Dixie's parents.
She was afraid of fireworks, of thunder, of backfiring cars. She'd been shot at as a stray and her body was riddled with birdshot. Her x-rays always looked like a starfield.
She absolutely hated Beagles. She didn't like other dogs all that much, but she really hated Beagles and would bark at them. She definitely didn't like dog runs and all the dogs sniffing her butt. It was the only time I ever heard her growl. She wasn't a very vocal dog in general, but we loved her various vocalizations because they were relatively rare. She liked people, all kinds, all ages. I never saw her hesitate to go up to someone, and she would let little kids pet her and pull her ears without losing her temper. She would just turn to us and give a mournful look so we would make them stop. She was so good at communicating.
I can still hear the characteristic flap-flap-flapping of her ears and the simultaneous jingling of her dog tags as she shook her body back into alertness each time she stood up. I would hear it in the morning and know she'd be waiting for John to come down and take her on the morning walk. I taught her to shake off the water on her coat when she'd gotten soaked from a walk in the rain. I'd put my hand on her forehead and wiggled it a little, saying "Shake off, come on, shake off!" and then stand back as she flung the droplets everywhere. She learned to sit on command, though only if she felt like it, and to wait at corners, but again only if she felt like it. We could always convince her she felt like it. She indulged us in this.
When we moved into our house last year she decided, independent thinker that she was, that she preferred to live outdoors all year round. We built her a dog house and indulged her whims even though we missed having her indoors with us. Her favorite thing in the whole world, besides pigs' ears, was when both John and I would go on a walk with her. She would look back at us, a big doggy grin on her face, over and over as if to check her good luck in getting both of us to go. It never failed to delight us.
I may add to this in the next few days. I want to capture as many memories as possible. I will probably add photos just for my own pleasure. I know pet owners everywhere will understand that I need to do this. I just can't do it all right now.
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