Rowdy Ann

When I was a kid we moved a bit. Every couple of years or so we moved. We settled when I was about 12 in Iowa. I didn't mind moving I learned a lot about people and making friends. I met a lot of kids with a lot of different ideas and ways of living. I had friends with farms, friends that had two working parents, friends that would help me kiss my first boy, and friends that would help me eventually come out - friends with higher financial means, the same and lesser means than my family, all in all moving was okay. There is a lot to be said for learning different ways of being in the world

Now, the difference between Iowa and Minnesota may seem small, but there was only one family with our last name in the phone book in the Quad Cities. Here in Minneapolis there are a couple of pages devoted to our last name...In Iowa there were no hockey players - and in the winter we got sleet and sheets of ice instead of snow. Everything popped out in the spring a month before anything happens here in Minnesota. In Minnesota I learned how to be outside in the winter - what clothes to wear to stay warm and how to skate and cross country ski and snow shoe. I spent summers at the lake in Minnetonka and swimming in lakes was natural. When I moved to Iowa people went to the city pool. I didn't mind the smell of chlorine but was just surprised by it. There were advantages to both - you don't have to clean weeds out of a pool, but then again you couldn't fish and swim off the same spot in a pool.

Before we had Gromit and Chewie - we had a lab mix named Rowdy Ann. Kristin cried when we drove home with Rowdy Ann. She had never had a dog before - she was immediately attached to Rowdy. We named her after a character a comedienne from silent movie era played - the actress name was Fay Tincher - Rowdy Ann was the ranchers' manly daughter who had to go away to finishing school to learn how to be a lady. One of our neighbors was a distant relative and had many of her movies and information about Fay. She easily lived up to her name with joy she brought to our house.

Our Rowdy Ann was a very sweet puppy. We quickly were charmed by her intelligence and spirit. She came to us pretty sick - worms and a cold - but she recovered quickly. We learned about the power of gentleness in training with her. She was the kind of dog that in obedience classes other people wondered why we took her she was so quick to learn and perform - but outside of class she could be pretty showy and pulled on her leash and occasionally would go momentarily deaf when we called her at the dog park. She had a great sense of humor with people and other dogs. When we would walk Rowdy we would tell her that every black dog was probably a distant cousin - she was your basic Minnesota mixed breed lab.

Within a year of Rowdy arriving we found out she had serious hip dysplasia. It pretty much tore us up. OMG she loved the dog park but it made her so sore. She loved running with us too, but it also made her stiff. We made choices for what she could and couldn't do based on how much pleasure she seemed to get out of an activity. We gave her rimadyl, glucosamin, chondritin, and acupuncture and eventually we replaced one of her hips. She healed well from that surgery and continued to run with us. She was the kind of dog that was welcome pretty much anywhere we went. She was easy and relaxed. She loved chasing squirrels and playing with her friends Ruby and Zoe and Hale-Bopp.

She had a penchant for eating things - I believe that is a lab thing. She had surgery to remove a few expandable items from her intestines. And she had also had to have vomiting induced using a morphine capsule after overdosing on her chewable rimadyl.

The last weekend we had her we went snow showing up north. She came home and slept like crazy and proceeded to eat about a pound of dried liver treats. She started vomiting and we thought it was the liver treats but took her into the vet just in case - that silly dog - we found she had cancer and a large tumor. We took her home. I fried her some bacon to eat and make the house smell good to her and then her friends came to visit. She was 9 year old, we did not have enough time with her - there are no two ways around it. She got the worst of the physical makeup of her shared breeds - it wasn't fair to her and yet somehow Kristin and I selfishly felt pretty darn cheated too.

Our house felt absolutely huge. We decided to get a puppy but it was hard. I made a decision to look for a doodle. I had met one years earlier before they were considered a designer dog. I did some research and one thing they really studied in breeding doodles were their hips. They were known for having good personalities. We picked a dog and Kristin flew to get our silly white boy. He had all kinds of information about his hip tests and his parents. Nothing could guarantee us but it was a better chance. There are many other things to care about when picking a puppy. These were the big ones for us though - athletic, smart and trainable. We picked Rowdy from a Last Hope farm so we had no idea what the dog world was going to say to us about the doodle - it didn't even occur to me that anyone would care.

Gromit was hysterically different from Rowdy. I think they would have loved each other though, because they both have a sense of humor and both engage us in their games. Training them has been very different. They both could claim intelligence - but Rowdy could handle much subtler cues than Gromit. Gromit needs precision and repitition. Rowdy needed one or two successful repetitions and she had a learned behavior. Rowdy looked out for us and so does Gromit. Rowdy had less to say about it than Gromit, but both were watchful and listened or sniffes for things we did not see. One was black and one is white. Rowdy had a Berner friend named Ruby and Gromit has one named Emme.

Chewie and Rowdy would have respected each other's code of honor. Chewie would have understood and appreciated Rowdy's loyalty. Rowdy would have sympathized in a motherly way with Chewie's sense of safety and need to have the earth under him. Rowdy understood the concept of pace and endurance - Chewie really gets this idea - except where the ball is involved. Rowdy had a silky soft short coat and her muscles were chiseled like Chewie's.

Sometimes I think Rowdy stops in to visit us - there is a certain way she makes her presence known. I try not to keep my heart focused too long on missing her because I think she is probably running much faster and with more happiness without the burden of her broken body, so I don't want her to feel stuck in this world. I am greatful to her for showing us the joy of the dog world. Then I think of Gromit and Chewie - and the way they show us the joy of other dog worlds - it is good to live here with these boys. I still miss Rowdy sometimes. I loved her, I love these guys. I really enjoy that each one of our dogs are so individual. They have different needs and yet are the same in some ways.