Sugar, our copper-colored Australian Shepherd, was getting old, and the thoughts of losing her really bothered us. She had been an excellent pet, baby-sitter, friend, plus being a very lady-like dog. We decided that if we got another Aussie, Sugar could help train the new dog to be as efficient as she was. My brother and I talked about a trade (piano lessons for his daughter in exchange for a puppy), and so we were able to bring home a student for Sugar.
Freckles was mixed upright from the beginning. Instead of a beautiful copper color, she was a little bit of many dark colors, with a few spots of white tucked here and there. She had freckles on her tummy; so between that and her mottled coat, she got her name. We tried to teach her to shake hands, but she was so hyper-active that she would swing both paws at us and we couldn't get a good shake. When she saw one of us, she started getting her paws in gear; and that caused her back to swivel. When we tried to pet her, she danced around in circles, or landed on her back, wiggling all the time. She was so effective in barking at people coming to our home that until we were quite close, she even barked at us. She had a poor sense of direction and an apparent hearing loss. Sometimes when calling her, she would start running the opposite way; or we would have to shout two or three times to get her attention. None of us can remember how we discovered her favorite pastime, but we soon learned that she was never happier than when she was skimming her nose (though it never got bloody) through the dust on the road as she retrieved, of all things, rocks.
How do you train a natural clown? Sugar was overwhelmed by this bubbling ball of fur, and though she continued to be an example of proper dog etiquette, she didn't dent Freckles' free spirit. For a while, Freckles took obedience training (one of our friends laughingly said, "Freckles? Obedient?") from our town expert on dogs; and Freckles got along fairly (?) well, until we complimented her; then she would come unglued, and jump, roll and wiggle for joy because we were letting her know we liked what she was doing. After that we played it low key, and learned to give very quiet, quick praise. Her attention span was good when on a leash, but we could never trust her to "sit, stay" if we tried to leave her for a few minutes.
Freckles was a people dog. The first two or three times she came into heat, we took her to my Dad's feed yard and put her into an isolation pen. She couldn't stand it, and would bark until she was hoarse. When we visited her, she pleaded so vehemently (with such a trapped look in her eyes) to go with us that our children and I were in tears when we drove off. We decided that isolation wouldn't do, and so we had her spayed so she could always be where people were.
She loved playing, sleeping, or going along on work projects, with family members. We had a small field stream in front of our home, and the kids loved to tease Freckles by jumping from one side of the ditch to the other, as fast as possible. She would jump almost as quickly, trying to catch them, scolding by barking in a teasing way. When our son slept outside, we would wait until he was asleep, and then quietly crawl into the side of the sleeping bag, and end up sleeping by his feet. We never could figure out how she could breathe tucked away like that. My husband, Willis, pretended he didn't like her, and called her a dumb, ugly, stupid, good-for-nothing, worthless, dog. When he would walk out of the house with his milk bucket, she'd perk up, but wouldn't try to go along until he said, "Come on, then". She would then zip out to the truck, run around to the back and jump up over the tailgate; then panting, she surveyed the world from her throne as they went down the road. A few times Willis parked the truck in a different direction, and she would try to jump on the hood, or else have to turn around and run the opposite way so she could get in the right position to jump into the bed.
Even Freckles' leaving was different. She was almost ten years old, and a little heavy, but she was very active, and willing to chase and retrieve rocks until we thought she would drop from the exertion. She loved going into the hills with us, and that was where she was on June 1, 1981. Willis had taken her with him to Kane Springs while he got a load of wood. Freckles wandered in and out of camp all day, but about an hour before time to come home, she left and never came back. He had a meeting he needed to attend, but spent another hour searching and calling for her. Many days were spent in the same area, getting wood, and calling and searching, but she was never found. The sagebrush was so tall that we couldn't scan it very well, which really hampered our search. We asked ranchers, and even people going to a reservoir north of the area to watch for her, but we always got negative reports. We have wondered what happened, and have worried about the terrible things that could have gone wrong; but we hope that she was chasing a rabbit, which she liked to do, and dropped suddenly. Often when looking towards Kane Springs and Black Mountain, I think of Freckles, and the zestful ten years she spent with us, and we hope she has plenty of rocks to retrieve in dog heaven.
A friend later told me that dogs have a habit of wandering off to die quietly and peacefully away from the people that love them. (top)
Get your own Free Home Page