Sawdust and Sunshine
The Life of Lucy, an Adventurer's Best Friend
October 2012 - October 2023
Table of Contents
But First... A Little Ramble
There are few dogs that can claim as many miles as Lucy did in her lifetime. From big ones (like the 485 mile Colorado Trail), to tiny ones (when she walked me down the aisle at my wedding), to her last one (a 6 mile hike in perfect fall weather to a waterfall), she was the ultimate trail dog.
It seems unkind that one of the best compliments I can pay her is to say that she was “never inconvenient”. But it is true and perhaps actually the best thing you can hope for in a dog! There are few dogs that are as unobtrusive, polite, and well-behaved as she was. Friends with new puppies always wanted to schedule those first walks with us so that their dogs would learn from the best. When we would puppy sit other dogs, we would always comment about how they were underfoot, tripping us when we turned around. They would chew things that weren’t dog toys or bark unnecessarily or need fed on a certain schedule. We often compared Lucy to a cat because she was so independent around the house, you never had to think too much about her. As I watched other friends with their dogs, I realized she also took care of herself on the trail. I would roll my eyes as my friends kept after their dogs to “come here” and “leave that” the whole time.
The best trail dog is one that you only have to say two words to: “okay” when it’s time to take off and “hup!” when it is time to load up at the end.
That was Lucy. She is sorely missed and will be impossible to replace.
Inspiration
Dogs had always been a part of my life.
My Grandpa had a rotating beagle hunting dog tied up in the backyard who loved attention from the grandkids. Max and Ruby were the two that I was old enough to remember. When Ruby passed and she wasn’t replaced with the next hunting dog, I think that’s when my grandpa finally started to seem old. His health was in decline and he stopped hunting.
My mom always had dogs when we could. (Sometimes in places that didn’t allow pets and we would have to settle for our pet rats that we kept hidden.) There was her first dog Asia, found in her neighborhood when she was a little girl. I was 5 when we had Joey who would carry around our cat by his scruff like a puppy. Then Shelby, the dog who would gently lick my toddler brother until he turned away from her bone and she would carefully slip it away from him. Now there is another Ruby in our lives as she is working with a fearful rescue to become a hiking and mountain biking companion.
My dad also had dogs throughout my life. I remember Mojo, a big fluffy thing who loved to play. I can picture more but don’t recall their names. Then came Voodoo who was the epitome of a loyal adventure dog that my parents got to share. She would go rock climbing with us and somehow find her way to the top of the route just in time for my dad to arrive up there. She got this crazed look in her eyes when someone would throw sticks into a stream for her. You were likely to get a finger chomped in her excitement.
I was 22 when I decided I was ready to find my constant companion, like Voodoo was for my parents.
My Pappap, who lived on his farm right at the Pennsylvania/Ohio border, always had border collies that had puppies regularly. He sold them mostly to other farming folks in the area. His current pair at that time included a female named Blue Eyes. She had the traditional black and white border collie coloring, although she had a very flat, smooth coat rather than one that was fluffy. As her name implies, her most striking feature were her gorgeous blue eyes. She moved in that typical border collie crouching lope around the farm, following my Pappap like his small, fleet-footed shadow. You’d have to look twice to find her observing from under a nearby tractor or behind a pile of lumber fresh from the mill.
On the other hand, the male dog Rusty would be literally sitting on your feet, tongue lolling and gazing at you with adoring eyes, begging for a pet. He was giant for a border collie, and had enough fluffy fur to cover two regular sized dogs. He had red and white coloring with golden eyes, a very handsome boy. The two of them had a litter born in early October 2012 and, as granddaughter, I got the pick of the bunch. I received a picture of the group to make my choice from afar (I was in Indiana at the time). There was only 1 red puppy amongst the black and white. I chose her.
Puppyhood
Several weeks later, I was on Thanksgiving break from college and drove up to PA to spend the holiday with family. It was perfect timing as the puppies were ready to leave their mother and meet their new families. By the time I got there, only my red puppy and one black and white brother were left. Pappap good naturally complained that he’d had to beat away customers with a stick from the one I had picked. My boyfriend at the time was with me and tried to convince me to change my mind and take the little male dog, since he preferred a boy. The brother was super friendly and cute and adorably round with fluffy fatness. I’m sure he made a great dog for whoever got him. But my heart was set on the blue eyed, pink nosed little lady with the white-tipped curly tail. She left with us that day. As she sat on my lap in the front seat of the car, we tried to come up with a name for her. The name Lucy popped into my mind and it just seemed perfect. I had met my new best friend.
She took her first walk with us, leash free, on the road in front of my other grandparents’ house. She walked directly behind us, causing me to sometimes panic when I would look over my shoulder and couldn’t see her.
Later, we went to my friend Kayla’s house where we played in the yard. We would run with her behind us and then yell “stop!” and screech to a halt. She would stop with us.
At the time, I wondered if she would end up with Rusty’s untamable fluffy coat since every hair on her body was sticking straight out. I wondered if her eyes would stay blue like her mother’s. I wondered if her tail would always have that husky-like curl to it.
As she grew, she developed her mother’s slick fur, although in her father’s coloring. Her eyes changed from blue to green and finally settled on the same beautiful gold like Rusty. She inherited Blue Eyes’s gait and demeanor.
But before she would grow into her adult appearance, we first had to get through her first 7 months of living with me in my “no dogs allowed” apartment just off campus.
I’m not sure what I was really thinking at the time, I probably just wasn’t thinking, since I was young and reckless. I figured we would never get caught with a dog, and truthfully we never were. I always credit Lucy’s lifelong good behavior to those first months of training. She learned not to bark and to wait on the door step until I walked out to make sure the coast was clear. Then she would sprint across the yard to a spot behind another building and wait for me there while I locked up. So her basic tricks (sit, lay down, wait/stay, come, quiet) were ingrained in her pretty early. Also, my mom was a dog trainer and I was studying to be a teacher. My mom and I always discussed how dog training and teaching children were essentially the same thing, so Lucy probably had the best situation to learn quickly. .
The only memory I have of her being naughty as a puppy was coming home one day to find that she had chewed apart a cardboard box into tiny shreds all over the living room floor. I have a picture of her when I walked through the door sitting looking so contrite in the middle of the debris. Her ears were pinned back and she was gazing up at me with those big “I’m so sorry” eyes. I don’t even think she got in trouble, she clearly knew that what she had done was wrong. Thankfully, that cardboard box she had chewed was empty and unimportant, so no harm no foul. In fact, for the rest of her life, if another dog was getting into trouble, she would cower and apologize like she was the one being yelled at. I always felt so bad for her because she was never the one actually in trouble. Even on the very rare occasion that she would throw up or have an accident in the house (usually because I had given her way too much human food earlier so really it was my fault) I would feel the need to console her because she always looked so miserable to have done something she knew was wrong.
Okay, perhaps there was just one other time she misbehaved. After she had gotten spayed, she licked open her incision and had to go back to get it re-stitched. This time I put a cone on her. Then she opened it again and I realized she had gotten to it by scratching with her back paws! So after it was fixed again, she had the cone and an Ace bandage wrapped around the incision. She still opened it again! As a poor college student, I was running out of funds to keep taking her in to get the opening re-stiched. The vet didn’t even anesthetize her that last time, just stapled her shut real quick. Lucy yelped and it was horrible but perhaps she got the message. Or perhaps the cone, the Ace bandage, and two very thick big socks on her back legs did the trick.
Fine! I know of one other time she got busted doing something wrong… and slightly Satanical…? I have an antique manger scene that I set up underneath the Christmas tree every year. It’s basically made up of stuffed animals, so each piece is soft and filled with cotton and rice. Well Little Miss Lue didn’t know the difference between these chewable objects and her own stuffed toys, so she made off with none other than the Baby Jesus. Really?! Not the sheep or even Joseph! You had to go for the Messiah. Thankfully, she was caught before any damage was done and the child was returned to his manger safe and sound. The set up stayed on the ground that year and every year after that. She never bothered it again.
First Adventures
Lucy’s adventurous life started pretty much from the get-go. When school closed for the Christmas holiday, I went home to my parent’s house in Colorado. We had plans to snowshoe to a hut on top of Berthoud Pass and spend a couple of nights.
Of course the veteran Voodoo would be leading the way and the little Lucy was invited to come learn what being a mountain dog was all about.
Voodoo was not altogether thrilled about having a little whimper snapper around, but we were happily surprised to see them actually playing together by the end of the trip. And snuggling for warmth, although Voodoo looked embarrassed to be caught in the act.
Voodoo would continue to be a major part of Lucy’s life and education until her passing in 2019 at the age of 16.
The area where I went to college was pretty rural with some open spaces and parks scattered about that were perfect for letting Lucy stretch her legs. I’m not even sure if there were leash regulations there, but we never used one and we never really ran into other people. She could be easily called off chasing deer but I never stopped her from chasing rabbits or squirrels. She loved to tree the latter and stare up at them while they yelled down at her.
As her legs grew longer, so did our adventures.
We encountered frequent creek crossings that sometimes required a good ol’ fashioned log bridge. I’m not sure why, but anytime she had the option to cross a bridge rather than walk through the water, she would always take the bridge, no matter how narrow and sketchy it would be for her. To me, it seemed like just getting her paws a little wet walking through a shallow stream would have been much easier than precariously balancing over several tiny logs and branches bunched up together. One time she slipped off the log and I turned to find her with her front legs bent into a circle shape, desperately holding on to the log between them while her body hung beneath her. I didn’t even know dog legs could turn that way, like she was giving the log a hug from underneath. She did happen to be wearing her harness then, so I ran back to help her back up. It wasn’t a far drop and the water beneath wasn’t at all a raging river, so she was in no danger. I couldn’t help but laugh at her panicky expression.
Perhaps she just didn’t really understand what a stream was yet…
When she was still very young, I got her one of those soft frisbees that was miniaturized for puppies. She was hooked from the first throw, starting a life-long obsession with fetch that would at times drive me nuts. On that very first toss, she retrieved the frisbee and brought it right back. She did again for the next throw.
But somewhere along the line she would only bring the frisbee back about halfway, lay down, and tuck her nose under the frisbee. I tried calling and patting my leg and even pretending to walk away to get her to bring it the rest of the way. Nothing worked. As I approached, her eyes darted furtively from me to the frisbee resting on her nose and back to me again. I couldn’t help but chuckle. I bent down to grab the toy and let it fly again. “We’ll work on that,” I thought to myself. But as easily as she learned any other command I taught her, she never did bring a fetch toy back all the way. It drove everyone crazy who ever played with her. She would often just get one throw and then she would pathetically wait for up to 20 minutes, always with her nose tucked under the frisbee or stick or touching the tennis ball. Her eyes flicked from the object to anyone who passed by in an obvious plea. Even my grandma, who didn’t care for any dog, thought that maneuver was so cute. Eventually, when you had forgotten all about her, she might surprise you by bringing the toy around and leaving it under your chair or even up on the seat tucked behind your back. Then you could give her another toss and the whole performance would start all over again.
A Growing Pack
Fetch became much easier when Bebe joined our family. My boyfriend’s mom couldn’t keep her dog anymore, so we adopted her. She was a wreck: unsocialized and refused to ride in a car anywhere. She would drop to the ground in a move we called “the carpet”. Once there, she suddenly weighed about a thousand pounds and was impossible to move. She was aggressive towards other people and dogs and routinely would eat things like light bulbs and socks. Deep down she was a sweet dog who wanted to please and very intelligent. Bebe didn’t have any actual trauma, just inexperience, so it didn’t take her long to shape up. In a matter of months, she was as well behaved as Lucy and a welcome addition to the pack. Bebe was a McNab, which is basically a border collie and shepherd mix. So she had the black and white markings of a border collie, but was built a bit like a German Shepherd. She and Lucy would chase each other in circles around the small house we rented and wrestle until you couldn’t even pet their necks, they were so covered in slobber. The best part, though, was when we would go to the park behind the house and play fetch. Bebe always got the first throw, she was a little older after all. Lucy knew to wait her turn for the second throw. She would chase and return halfway and then Bebe (who had already returned her toy) would go pick up Lucy’s toy and bring it the rest of the way back. It was the perfect system.
We would play some serious hard core fetch for 20-30 minutes and then both of them would be hot and exhausted. I would bring them back in and put a few inches of cold water in the tub. They would jump in and lay down to cool off while lapping up some water to drink.
It was surprising how similar my two “kids” looked and acted to each other. Although they were not actually litter mates (and Bebe was one year older), they were definitely sisters.
My pack of 2 often joined my parents and Voodoo for our most epic excursions. At this time in my life, I was still very much a follower in adventuring. I am grateful to be invited along to live in a snow cave for 3 days, for example.
I did manage to put together a trip with my mom and Voodoo to summit Mt. Evans (now named Mt. Blue Sky).
And I took my 2 dogs on a survival trip in the woods near Colorado City. Essentially, I brought only what I might have in a typical day pack and wanted to see how long I would make it. (I brought extra supplies that were just for the dogs since I didn’t need to test their survival abilities.) We made it 3 days in the pouring rain before Bebe got an eye infection and I called it.
Bebe and Lucy were later joined by my boyfriend’s father’s dog, a boxer named Roxy. He couldn’t keep her when he moved into a senior center. Roxy wasn’t much interested in fetch, but invented her own game by chasing the chasers and pouncing on them when they were distracted by their obsession.
Now when I got together with my parents, we were truly bringing along quite the pack as we adventured with all 4 dogs. Thankfully, everyone was well behaved and got along for the most part. Voodoo and Bebe, as the 2 alphas, always had one little squabble that was over quickly and then they would co-exist in peace for the remainder of the trip.
That relationship with my boyfriend didn’t work out, and I lost the other two dogs in the breakup since they belonged to my ex’s family members originally. Lucy had come from my side of the family, so she rightfully remained with me. She never again would play chase or wrestle with another dog after that and I am sad that she missed out on the social aspect of being a part of a pack.
A New Family
Not that she was an only dog for long. My ex and I continued to live together till we ran out our lease and by then I had met and fell in love with the man who I would marry 5 years later. It was a little fast, but we were young and infatuated, so I moved in with John and his golden retriever Huey.
It was actually Huey that sealed the deal for John after a first date that left me saying, “there was no va va voom”. On his second chance, however, he introduced me to his 120 pound hunk of love who was tall enough to hit his head on the dining room table. Huey and Lucy co-existed well together, sometimes playing tug of war, but mostly just keeping to themselves. When they did tug, Huey would eventually just lay down and Lucy knew she had no chance and would give up.
Huey was 8 and John was already writing him off as “old” but I knew he had plenty of adventures left in those long legs.
Lucy learned to appreciate a nice long roll in the grass or pine needles or sand from Huey.
But she hated that he could stuff 3 tennis balls in his mouth, leaving her with none. She would circle around him frantically and then look at me like, “Mom! That’s not fair!” Huey would sometimes assist her fetch return, but wasn’t as obsessed about fetch as Lucy. He would eventually go do his own thing after a few throws or just keep the ball to himself to chomp and shred.
Fetch still definitely remained a favorite part of her day.
She had a special prancy step she would use when she was carrying a too big stick out on the trail. I swear, she would sometimes try to carry whole logs or saplings. One photo in the following slideshow shows a giant log and Lucy waiting in the distance behind it for a throw. That was taking things just a little too far!
John and Lucy had a brief adjustment period to living together. Huey was also a pretty perfect dog, so John was hesitant to bring a wild card into his world. Lucy was much too independent to accept a new person telling her what to do, even shrugging off her collar on their first walk together to clearly tell him that she could walk herself, thank you very much. They quickly came to love and respect each other as family, although Lucy would still come to my defense if John tried making a move in bed at night when I wasn’t in the mood.
We all got real close real fast when Huey and Lucy had their first road trip to the ocean crammed together in the back of my Chevy Sonic along with all our other gear. Lucy would always try to jump in first to claim a spot before the bigger dog took up all the space. Along the way, we stopped at lots of places to let them stretch their legs and explore. Then, they finally saw the ocean for their first time. They loved our long walks and fetch sessions in the sand. (You can read the full articles for that trip by clicking here: Dog Days in California.)
We took a subsequent road trip to northern California 3 years later, thinking we might eventually buy some property there. We ended up with our mountain parcel in Colorado that we love, but that was a great trip anyway. The dogs really savored the different ecosystems from what we have in Colorado, with the beaches and the lush forests.
On our first backpacking trip as a new family, we all woke up to mountain goats surrounding the tent. The dogs did a great job leaving them alone so we could all enjoy the pleasant surprise. That trip was to Mohawk Lake.
Huey got to join us on a couple more backpacking trips including one in Grape Creek Canyon…
… one in the Flattop Mountains and across the Devil’s Causeway… (can you spot the fox in one of the photos below?)
… and a trip in southwest Colorado with my mom and her two dogs.
On just a regular overnight camping trip, Lucy and Huey tag teamed to alert us to a bear walking through our campsite. We were cowboy camping without a tent in order to enjoy the meteor shower over head. Thankfully, the bear didn’t particularly care about us and the dogs didn’t pursue an encounter. It was a magical experience, watching the giant bear shape that was a black darker than the surrounding night, yet highlighted in silver by the moon lumber past.
In 2019, when Lucy was 6 and a half, we set out on our biggest adventure yet, thru-hiking the 485 mile Colorado Trail. I could never have done an experience like that alone and, although a human companion would have been nice, Lucy made the fun parts memorable and the hard parts bearable.
She had her own sleeping bag that I had altered so that it could zip all the way apart to be stored evenly on either side of her pack along with her food and treats. Her pack easily weighed 10 pounds after a full resupply to her 45 pounds, so it was a big ask. Yet, after carrying her pack for 20 miles up and over some of the toughest terrain, she would still find a stick and want to play fetch when we made camp at night. I was too exhausted to even throw. We encountered a variety of weather along the way, one day walking through the rain for 8 straight hours. I remember bending down to offer Lucy a drink from my bladder hose and being so upset when she wouldn’t drink because I thought she should be thirsty. She glared at me, her fur plastered to her in a way that made her look like a drowned rat, and her eyes said, “I don’t need a drink, mom, the whole world is a drink right now!”
Another time, we got caught out in a very close lightning storm and hunkered down together, smelling the air burn around us. She was not pleased.
The 2018-2019 winter was particularly snowy, so I was still post-holing in spots all the way through July. Lucy would skip ahead on top of the snow and look back at me, perplexed by the fact that I couldn’t keep up. She was invaluable in some of those spots to sniff out the trail underneath the feet of snow so that I didn’t get lost. In another spot, a massive avalanche had wiped out the trail, completely covering it with jumbled up trees, like a giant’s game of pick up sticks. It lasted for about half a mile, completely obliterating any sign of the trail. Lucy guided me right across.
John and Huey ran our support missions, even driving 2 hours one way to drop off bug spray once. When we did arrange to meet, John and Huey would usually hike in to find us and then hike out with us a little ways before turning back. Lucy was always very excited to see them. One time, they had started in to meet us, but a hail storm had swept in so they had went back to the car to wait for us. Lucy smelled them on the trail where they had turned around, glanced back at me one time, and then phew! was gone, chasing their scent back to a dry place to lay for a little bit.
There was a morning about halfway through the hike when she woke up with a little limp on her front legs. I carried her pack to the next possible extraction point where John picked her up. She rested for the next several days and I slack packed (covered miles by just doing a few day hikes) through part of the Collegiate Mountains. Lucy’s time off was the reason I ended up meeting someone who is now a dear friend of mine, Debbie. She was a volunteer shuttler for thru-hikers in the area and gave me quite a few lifts as I tried to stay on course while coming off the trail to be with Lucy in the evenings. Debbie even puppy sat Lucy for a day. The break did her a world of good and she was back on the trail with me by the time we hit Monarch Pass. She finished out the rest of the trail strong.
When your only companion for nearly a month doesn’t necessarily talk back to you, you end up making up stupid little games and jokes and stories in your head. I created a song for Lucy during that time that went to the tune of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.
But do you recall…
The most famous trail dog of all?
Lucy the Colorado Trail dog (trail dog),
Had a very sun bleached butt.
But if you saw her hiking (hiking),
You would laugh and say “so what?”
All of the other hikers (hikers),
Like to compliment her pack.
And they always tell me (tell me),
“Man I wish my dog could do that!”
Then one day, her Lue, her limped,
And we weren’t so sure.
But with just a little rest,
Her paws were a blur!
Lucy the Colorado Trail dog (trail dog),
I’m so happy she’s with me.
Cause when this is all over (over),
We’ll have such a great story!
We’ll have such a greeeat stoooorrryyyyyy!
She had a couple of other songs that were special to her, like:
“Lue, Lue, skip to my Lue!”
and
“Her’s the Luuuucy Clementine,
With her brown nose and her white stripe,
Her’s my Lucy all the time.”
(Yes, she struggled with correct pronouns in English, often using ‘her’ when it should have been ‘she’.)
John reminded me to sing all of her songs to her while we were at the vet prepping to say goodbye.
Big Changes
First, we had to bid farewell to Huey who passed after a long battle with cancer in March of 2021. While many people faced rough times during the COVID-19 pandemic, it came as a blessing for me because I got to teach remotely the whole last year of Huey’s life. It enabled me to enjoy spending time with him on my lunch break and be available sooner to go on afternoon walks before it got dark in the winter. He was 13 when he died, pretty old for such a large dog. It was the first time I was present for a dog to be euthanized. I would later be very thankful for the experience when it came to be Lucy’s time. I felt better prepared and knew what to expect.
Lucy was an only dog again for the first time in 8 years. She was always pretty independent, so she didn’t show many outward signs of missing Huey. She certainly missed his high pitched “yip” that would notify us that he wanted us to open the door for him. Lucy always benefited from that “yip” as well, and she suddenly was being forgotten outside, since she didn’t bark to ask to come back in.
She did all of a sudden start getting very stressed out during car rides, which she never had a problem with in the past. Perhaps Huey had been a calming influence on her before and now she was missing that in her life. She also got a little more stand-off-ish with other dogs we would meet out on walks, often growling and needing to be told to “leave it”. It never led to an incident, since she listened well to that command, but it was a change in her behavior that could only be explained by the loss of her brother of 5 years.
After Huey passed, we began to look at Lucy in a different light. As our friends and family congregated on a beach in Lake Powell for our wedding, bringing their fur babies along for the fun, we realized that Lucy was suddenly the oldest dog we knew. Watching her play fetch in the sand and the water with dogs half her age, we considered all that she had already accomplished and all that we looked forward to doing with her in her elder years.
Since my father was the officiant at our wedding, she filled in to walk me down the beachy aisle… and then distracted everyone during the ceremony by bringing various people a stick to throw.
The three of us spent our honeymoon at our new mountain property named Serenity Slopes. One of Lucy’s favorite words was “park”. She would get so excited if you mentioned it. Well, this place became HER park. It was truly a space where she could do whatever she wanted and roam free. I am so grateful that she lived long enough for us to make our dream of land ownership a reality.
She again wasn’t an only child for long because we found out we were pregnant in August of 2021. As we spent the months preparing to welcome our little one, Lucy mostly just seemed concerned about my growing stomach and what that might mean for her.
Grey was born in April and she was NOT a fan of him at all. Her one very noticeable act of defiance to the change was stealing a sandwich off the couch in the living room. Before we could leave BACON siting out and she would know not to take it. She never let Grey pet her, preferring to leap up and run to another room instead. On the flip side, she would launch herself to his defense if she thought someone was playing too rough with him. Also, if he was laughing too hard, she would run over and bark (even at me!) to tell everyone to settle back down.
I challenge you to find a single photo in the slideshow below where she looks even remotely happy to have Grey (literally) in the picture.
She thankfully learned quickly to stay on the right side of his stroller so that her leash wouldn’t tangle with the wheels. She was probably just trying to stay out of sight, embarrassed to be spotted on stroller friendly terrain rather than a rugged mountain trail.
From that moment on, he seemed to be always there on her adventures, cramping her style. Perhaps she actually should have counted her blessings. Grey only napped on the go for the longest time, so she got plenty of walks.
He even had the audacity to come to “her park”.
She had to resist squeaking toys that she learned were not hers. The injustice! His only redeeming features were that he soon developed the ability to hand her treats and throw tennis balls for her (with more or less success).
She probably enjoyed our rare baby free moments just as much as I did.
Memories
Lucy definitely got less of our time and attention in the last year and a half of her life as our focus shifted to raising our son. Many times we consoled ourselves with the thought that Grey would grow fast and Lucy had plenty of time anyway. We knew both of her parents made it to 15, so that was the magic number we had in our heads. That was not to be, but we have to count our blessings for the time we had together. We made a lot of memories.
What follows is a random list of fond recollections that are in no way organized chronologically. I simply wrote them as they came as part of my grieving process.
She was absolutely OBSESSED with cats and would neurotically stare at them, although she didn’t chase or otherwise harass them. She would forget to eat or go potty if there was a cat around. She had been known to even stare at a spot where she had once seen a cat, even if there was not currently a cat there. When we visited my dad’s house, who has 3 cats, she would jump out of the car and not come back until sunset as she tried to find them around the property.
Lucy would take advantage of John when he was mowing the lawn by dropping a tennis ball in the path of the machine. He would have to give her a throw to get it out of his way. He was very annoyed having to let go of the gas on the mower and having to restart it after each throw, so one time he tried to just reach around and grab it while still holding the handle. He almost ran over his foot with the blade and never did that again. Likewise she would take advantage of me when I was down on my yoga mat holding a tricky position to come and start licking my face. Trying to hold boat pose while giggling and ducking your head to avoid a wet tongue is not easy.
She always accompanied me on hikes and camping trips when I was otherwise alone, especially when we were at our property that has plenty of bears and mountain lions. I started a group called the Full Mooners that went out once a month to hike at night during (obviously) the full moon. Lucy was always there to give us peace of mind when we couldn’t see very far through the woods. She always was the first out of the camper or the tent to take stock of who or what might be around before the rest of us ventured out.
Who knows how many times she deterred someone or something and protected us. There were 3 times in her life that I know she actually did.
One was during the night while we were sleeping at our house. She started barking like crazy in the middle of the night. That was not normal for her, but we had recently discovered a family of raccoons living under our deck that would come out at night and make her bark, so we just rolled over and went back to sleep. In the morning, we discovered a window that was dislodged from its track and footprints in the dirt outside underneath of it. We called the police and they filed a report but there wasn’t much to go on to catch the would be intruder. Thankfully, Lucy had clearly done her job to protect her pack.
The second time was when I was pregnant and walking with just her at night in our neighborhood park. I had been doing that for years and never felt unsafe. We actually preferred walking there at night because we would let the dogs off leash. We rarely ran into anyone. During my pregnancy, there were 3 separate occasions where I ran into the same very tall man wearing a long coat and a cowboy hat. The first time, he was polite and stooped to pet Lucy and wished me a good evening. The second time, he enthusiastically rubbed Lucy down and told her what a good girl she was and tried to chat me up, but I wasn’t in the mood and moved on. I reflected on those two run ins and had a spine tingling feeling that he was ingratiating himself excessively with my dog. Perhaps so that next time we met, if he tried to harass me, Lucy wouldn’t be on her guard right away around him??? As I write that, I know how paranoid that sounds and truly I am never one to worry about things like that (much to my mother’s dismay), but they say to trust your gut in situations like that. The third time we ran into him, I probably gave off a negative vibe because Lucy completely changed her reaction to him. Instead of running up, tail wagging, she stuck close to my side and even growled at him while we passed. We never ran into him again after that and I have a feeling that she put the kibosh on whatever plan he may have had in mind.
The third time she saved the day was when we were on a long road trip and I was sleeping in the passenger seat while John was driving. He was also getting fatigued but was just trying to push through. He must have fallen asleep at the wheel because the next thing he knew, Lucy had dropped her chin on his shoulder to wake him up.
There were probably a fair amount of times that I put her unnecessarily in danger, but one that comes to mind was when we were submitting the 14ers Shavano and Tabaguache. In order to return after submitting the second one, you have to resubmit Shavano and then descend. I was exhausted from the effort of the twofer and figured I would save energy by going around the first peak instead of up and over it. I led us into a super hazardous scree/boulder field that was scarily unstable and easily twice as difficult to navigate than it would have been to just go over the top. I was so nervous of a rockslide at one point that I actually started praying that God wouldn’t punish Lucy for my terrible choice. I was fine with whatever consequence would come my way, but I begged that He would spare Lucy. We survived the ordeal, but I will never try something like that again.
Quite poetically, Lucy summited fourteen 14ers in her life (Evans, Quandary, Bierstadt, Grays, Torreys, Huron, Shavano, Tabeguache, Sherman, Democrat, Cameron, Lincoln, Bross, and Yale).
What follows in a montage of her ascents, her celebratory photos at the top, and a video of my friend Sarah and I singing happy birthday to her on her (obviously) birthday summit of Sherman.
Anytime you tried to offer Lucy a treat, she would take it so slowly and daintily that your arm would start hurting while you held it out for her. Then she would immediately take it to her special treat eating spot in the living room and spit it back out to sniff and lick it before finally gobbling it up. I swear it was like she was checking for poison or something. Unless of course it was ice cream! That spot on the carpet always needed run over 2 or 3 times when I vacuumed to get all the little treat crumbs.
As a typical mountain dog, she would more often than not turn up her nose at the offer of a bowl of water out on the trail, even though I knew she was thirsty! She would rather wait to run into a lake or a stream or a filthy puddle to lay in like a hippo and drink her fill.
She probably knew that there was a good chance we were hiking to some awesome pristine alpine lake anyway. There certainly were quite a few of those.
Usually those scenic lakes required crossing through quite a bit of alpine ground. Once you cross 11,000 feet the trees typically stop growing. It always amazed me how she could still sometimes find sticks to carry and beg for a throw.
Without trees, the flowers were free to take over the high country.
But she did love a good forest, with plenty of shade and sticks for fetch opportunities.
Perhaps her favorite ecosystem was any that contained snow to lay on and roll in. Even if it was just the pathetic last remains of winter that hid in the sheltered areas well into July.
If there was no snow to roll in, she was smart enough to utilize shade when she could find it. She always dug herself a nice little hole to lay in the dirt at the bottom of the crag while we were rock climbing.
We did spend a fair amount of time in the desert after all…
My parents introduced me to the desert splendor that is the Great Sand Dunes, my first National Park. It became a favorite place to take the dogs over the years, when the sand wasn’t too hot for their paws.
When Lucy and I completed the Colorado Trail in 2019, we opted for the East route option when the trail splits for some 75 ish miles through the Collegiate Peaks Mountain Range. It had been a very snowy winter and the high country promised us days of post holing. Going East kept us lower and in the rain shadow of the peaks where less snow had fallen and was probably melted by then. But the West option was supposed to be the prettier route and I always wanted to go back to conquer those miles too. In 2020, John joined Lucy and I to backpack half of it across 3 days. (We finished the other half, with Grey!, later on. Keep reading!)
Besides hiking, Lucy loved to join us on bike rides while she was still in her prime. Just in the last couple years of her life, we decided to stop bringing her unless it was an easy ride and not longer than 5 miles. It just got to be too hard on her joints as she raced to keep up.
One activity that she absolutely hated was boating. Whether on our 26 foot fishing boat or my inflatable kayak, she was not a fan of being transported over water. We stopped taking her on boating trips in her last couple of years to save her the stress and the difficulties on her joints as she maneuvered in tricky spots on the rocking boat. She probably appreciated it, although it meant we were spending weeks away from her that now I regret.
Lucy was a huge help in the kitchen, helping to lick out pans and dishes with stuck on food. She was like a pre-rinse for the dishwasher. She would also hover nearby anytime I would clean out the fridge to enjoy the cottage cheese or the sandwich meat that had been in there a little too long. I’m not sure how people even function without a dog to help clean up. After she had passed, I remember holding out a tray to my friend that was caked in chicken drum remains that had hardened into concrete. I asked her what I was supposed to do with this now?! She knew I was struggling after losing Lucy and tried to console me that everything would be okay. I said, “no, really! What do I do with this now?!” I had no idea how to scrub a pan anymore. It took soaking overnight and a lot of elbow grease to do what Lucy would accomplish in no time.
She would get the worst snowballs stuck in her butt fluff and paws in the winter. She always managed her coat just fine so that I barely every had to brush her, let alone take her to the groomers. But I started taking her every year right when the first snow fell so that she could get a nice perimeter cut to take out all her extra fluff. That helped prevent the snowballs. I also discovered Musher’s Secret which is just a wax you put on their paws and then learned that cooking spray worked just as well and was easier to get all over her paws quickly when we were eager to start our adventure. (See below for a link to Musher’s Secret and other adventurous dog gear.)
One time, starting out at the trailhead, we ran into a little snow man someone had built right at the entrance. Lucy was super suspicious of this strange creature and was warily circling and refusing to come near. Finally, I had to go pat the snowman’s head to show her it wasn’t real. Then she came over and sniffed it and we could continue our walk.
Sometimes while cross country skiing, she would sit down right in the nicest part of the downhill path to try to eat the snowballs out of her paws. As I was coming towards her, I would have to yell “watch out Lue!” and she would dodge out of the way. Otherwise, she was great at staying out of the way and jogging along behind me. (She was also great about getting off to the side of the trail when mountain bikers were coming by.)
Another winter memory was while cross country skiing with her on a closed off Forest Service road. The road had deep ditches along both sides of it, which Lucy didn’t know about, since they were pretty filled in with snow. She tried to run down the side of the hill and across the road that we were on and ended up completely plopping into the ditch filled with snow. She was out of sight for just a few seconds and then was able to pop up with snow all over her face. So funny!
Cross country skiing was a favorite pastime in the winter, really the only way to actually enjoy the snowy months instead of just surviving them. My mom and my friend Sarah were often companions. Of course, so was Lucy.
When she was a tiny puppy, we took her snow shoeing and she must have gotten stuck somewhere in the deep snow because all of a sudden we didn’t know where she was. We were calling and backtracking and starting to really get worried when I got a phone call from someone in the parking lot. She had returned to the car like a super smart, good girl and was waiting for us there. The stranger had gotten my number from her collar. I couldn’t believe she knew to do that when she was so young!
Another time that she ran back to the car without me was when I was practicing shooting my compound bow. I knew she was very afraid of the sound of guns, she would even run and hide when she heard the buttons beeping to open our safe because she knew they were stored there. But I never expected that she would also be afraid of the “twang” of my bow string. We were out in National Forest and she FLEW back to the car, about a half mile down the road, and was hiding underneath it. Poor thing.
She was also afraid of the sounds of thunder and fireworks. She was never an overly cuddly dog. She would lay next to you only as long as you were actively petting her. As soon as you stopped, she’d jump down to go lay by herself. But if she heard those noises, she wasn’t too proud to snuggle in for comfort. It seems mean to say it, but I loved those moments, even though she was scared, because I got a little extra time to be close to her.
Lucy was a dog who loved going on adventures, but she equally loved going back home where her comfy couch and beds were. So every time we were out and planning to camp, she would suddenly realize it was getting too late and we were pitching a tent. Her attitude would suddenly change from frisky and playful to melancholy. But as soon as it was morning, she would burst out of the tent happy again.
She loved the creature comforts of home so much that sometimes you would surprise her by coming back into a room when she thought you were gone and she’d be up on the bed, using our pillow like a human would. It wasn’t like she wasn’t allowed on the bed, it just wasn’t something you ever really saw her doing. Apparently she only did it when she could have the whole bed to herself. When she would get busted, she would look so guilty. I would just smile and pet her and leave her to enjoy the moment.
She was allowed on the couch too, although she did have her own bed up there that we preferred she would use. John hated when she would lick the couch cushions and leave little wet spots that seemed to leave a noticeable mark even when they were dry.
I loved sneakily taking her picture when she was asleep. She was always just so cute and peaceful. Certainly, all that activity requires a lot of sleep to compensate. In the following slideshow, see if you notice the percentage of time that she is actually in her own dog bed, or instead lying somewhere that she prefers better. Also, note how often she has fallen asleep with a comfort toy tucked in close. Finally, see if you can catch her in the pose that I called “the kangaroo”. I’m not sure why I called it that, but it’s when she’s on her back with her legs up and her fluffy fur just splayed out all over the place.
Sometimes, you would sit down on the couch and be surprised by a Busy Bone she had tried to bury in the couch cushions to save for another time.You would also randomly step on her little piles of food she left all over the bedroom in the middle of the night. She never had a set feeding schedule or amount of food, her bowl was just always full. But Lucy would only eat at night, just when you were starting to drift off to sleep. She would grab a mouthful of food from the bathroom, bring it out to a comfier spot on the carpet in the bedroom and loudly crunch it, then go back for more. But apparently she never finished all the mouthfuls she would grab.
I remember renting an Airbnb with my friend Sarah who was Lucy’s regular babysitter. Sarah woke up in the middle of the night and was startled to be stepping on an unknown pile of something in the dark. Then she laughed her ass off at Lucy’s oddities. Sarah was one of Lucy’s favorite people, after all our adventures together and the cumulative months worth of puppy sitting Sarah did for us.
Lucy and Huey never bothered each other’s food, even though they both just had open and full food bowls at all times. I always wondered at the understanding they seemed to have about their food. But Huey did help clean up her little piles around the bedroom, which seemed totally fair game to me and actually super helpful.
She had her own moment of mistaken identity once. We were living in an apartment complex with a shared green space where I always took her to play fetch or go potty. One morning, she took off after a white rabbit that was all the way on the other side of the lawn. But the rabbit stood its ground and even started barking at her and she realized it was actually a tiny white dog! She turned around so hard, there had to have been skid marks in the grass. And she ran back towards me with her ears pinned back and her tail tucked and her eyes bugging out of their sockets. She looked like a cartoon.
It is one of the funniest memories I have of her.
A couple of times when we were out on our night walks, a giant owl swooped down really close to her back. I always wondered if it just saw the bobbing white tip of her tail and her paws and thought it was a mouse and then had to abruptly pull up when it realized there was a whole dog there. Or maybe it was trying to get at something she was scaring off the trail. Either way, I would only see it the second before it would seem to grab her and then watch it veer away. She never seemed to react to it too much, maybe it was so quiet she never even noticed.
In addition to rabbits, she loved chasing squirrels and chipmunks and pinning them up in trees. As she got older, she didn’t care too much about chasing rabbits, but she would always go after a squirrel. We had two that were consistently in our yard that we eventually named Larry and Leroy. They were Lucy’s archenemies.
One time, while I was gone without Lucy, I called John to check in and asked how Lucy was doing. He casually said, “oh she’s fine, she’s out playing with the raccoons.” I shrieked, “the RACCOONS!?” He immediately clarified he had meant the squirrels. That’s a very different animal hon.
She would also snap at passing flies and bees that I always worried would backfire on her if she bit a bee that stung her in the mouth. It never seemed to happen though.
Her birthday was in October, and it always seemed to be timed perfectly with the peak changing of the aspen leaves.
It made for some perfect photo ops for her on her birthday hike. In order to get her to perk her ears up for the pictures, I would have to say, “wanna go for a …?” I never had to finish the sentence, it was enough for her to lift her ears and give me her full attention while I snapped the shot. Sometimes I would say “wanna go for a walk?” And then would say, “you’re already on a walk silly!”
Lucy also clearly knew the word “grandma”. Even though her grandma lived in another state and Lucy rarely got to see her in her later years, my mom was a big part of Lucy’s life when she was younger. So if she heard the word “grandma”, she would run to the nearest door or window and try to peer out, looking for her grandma. It was very cute but also kinda sad. Thankfully, she got to have a nice long visit with her grandma just a few weeks before Lucy died when she was still energetic and happy and acting like herself.
Her release word from a ‘stay’ or ‘wait’ was “okay”. My mom, as a dog trainer, had warned me that you might want to use a less common word like “free” because you might say “okay” in passing and release her on accident.
It happened only one time, but with almost disastrous effect. I was taking Lucy to the park behind our house and she wasn’t on a leash, she never really needed it. She always knew to stop and wait at the only busy intersection before we would get to the park. I was talking on the phone to my cousin and said the word “okay” in my conversation with her. Lucy flinched and almost ran out into traffic, but saw the obvious cars rushing by and stopped. It was so scary because when I say “okay” she doesn’t just keep walking, it’s an exciting moment for her so she always dashes ahead. I am glad that she curbed that reflex when she saw the cars and didn’t get hit. That was right before two dogs I know got hit and killed by cars, so I started putting her on a leash for that spot just to be safe.
There is a really big off-leash dog park about 25 minutes from our house in Westminster. We went there a lot in order to just let her run free and play fetch sometimes while we walked. It was so big, I could get in a 4-5 mile walk and she could be off leash the whole time. In the hotter months, there was running water in the canal that she could lay in right at the beginning and the end of our walk to cool off.
She could always find abandoned tennis balls there to bring to us, full of hope. When she was younger, I would bring a Chuck It and throw balls for her the whole time. But she always had frail little ankle joints, I called them her bird bones. As she got older, she would limp on her front legs after a hard day of fetch. So I stopped using the Chuck It and would just throw a few with my own arm strength. She always complied when I told her to “leave it”, hoping she would get out of that Border Collie fetch trance, and just go run around and sniff and be free. She would inevitably find another ball and I would throw it a few times before telling her to “leave it” again.
There are lots of prairie dogs at this park that never seemed to interest Lucy too much. I suppose when she was younger she liked to chase after them until they ran into their holes, but as she grew up, she grew out of that.
One time, though, she somehow found a tennis ball INSIDE a prairie dog hole and got it out. From then on, every single time we went to that park, she would check that same hole, looking for a ball again.
Sometimes, Lucy would encounter another dog who also had a tennis ball in its mouth. They would circle and sniff each other, often dropping their balls in the process, and then pick up a ball and continue on their way. I was always curious to see if Lucy had gotten the better deal when she would end up trading balls with the other dog. She sometimes would come back with a ball that was in much better condition and I’d be so proud of her. Other times, she would come back with a raggedy scrap of a piece of a tennis ball and I would just shake my head at her. If she found the nice Chuckit balls that had been abandoned, I always let her take those ones home. Tennis balls lived at our house until she eventually would chomp them in half. Then they got trashed.
That park was the only place that I have actually seen rattle snakes, although I know they are in a lot of places we hike. Thankfully, Lucy never got bit. In fact there was a time that Lucy was out in front of us and must have circled around the snake. Then we came upon it on the trail and reflexively jumped off to the side. Huey was walking right behind us and I called and tried to get his attention but he didn’t change course. My heart stopped as I watched him step right on and over the snake, completely oblivious to the danger he was in. It was the most “dum dee dum” thing I have ever seen him do. I think the snake must have known he was just a big dumb oaf and didn’t mean any harm, so it miraculously didn’t strike. But after that, I took both dogs to get rattle snake trained at the Colorado Convention Center. They put you on one corner of a room and release the dog in the opposite corner. There is a snake in the middle that has been defanged, but will still rattle and strike. The objective is to have the dog attempt to reach you by going through the snake and they get shocked by a collar. Then they try again and they are supposed to go widely around the snake to get to you. Both dogs learned the lesson right away. We never had another snake incident after that to really test out the efficacy of the training in real life, which I am frankly thankful for.
That same park had a decent amount of cacti. Lucy HATED having her paws touched. In fact, the only way I could sometimes win tug-of-war with her was to grab at her front paws while she was tugging. She would yank them back and sometimes trip and let go of the toy. She always tolerated having her paws prepped for adventures in the snow or having her nails trimmed, but if you tried touching her paws while cuddling, she would leap up and run away. However, she knew if she got a cactus spine in her paw that all she had to do was limp over to me holding the paw up and I would help her out.
She sure left her pawprints all over the place. Most certainly on my heart… and my boot.
She had a particular way of glancing (sometimes glaring) out of the corner of her eye at us when we would talk about her. We called it her “look, not look”.
I always yelled at John for “disturbing her Lue” when he would try to stretch out and lay on the couch. His feet would just barely graze her bed, and Lucy would flail out and down and find another spot to lay.
Another little conflict that John and Lucy would have was over licking faces. I never minded if Lucy gave me kisses, although she could go on and on until I finally had to tell her to stop. John was not a fan. So Lucy knew to just lean VERY close to him and sometimes just lick the air next to his face to get her point across. Very rarely, he would cave and let her lick him. Right before we were about to put her down, I asked John if he wanted to let her kiss him. He leaned in and said, “go ahead Lue” but she just reached her head out and got very close. She knew she wasn’t supposed to lick him. I am thankful that I got a nice face full of licks right before she passed.
Out on hikes, she would often duck in and out of barbed wire fences and never snagged herself.
She had a special pine tree in our yard that she always went to first thing in the morning. She would roll in the pine needles and dust underneath and come back a whole shade lighter and sometimes with a little sap stuck in her fur. She also often rolled in the dust on the trail, changing her coat to better match her surroundings.
When we’d let her out to go potty from the camper at the property, we always turned on the awning light for her first. There are bears and mountain lions up there and she would have a quick look around before jumping down to do her business. She always struggled to run back up the metal steps, reminding me of that scene in Over the Hedge where the squirrel needs “less claw, more pad”.
We hunt from our camper for both deer and elk. Lucy got to come while we butchered and retrieved John’s big mule deer one time. As we approached the downed animal, she definitely held back and even circled wide around it when we got to it. Only after we had been touching it for a while did she come close. She got to eat a few scraps raw that we threw her and we always gave her the leg bones of our kills to gnaw from the quarters we carried out. It was after that experience of seeing the animal we butchered that made her run into the kitchen when she could smell us cooking with the meat. She knew she wasn’t allowed in the kitchen while we were cooking, but she would stop at her appropriate spot and wait for us to give her some scraps or leftovers.
We actually would see a decent amount of wildlife at our house down near Denver because of the park just behind the house and the reservoir across the street behind the neighbors’ houses. One time, Lucy was growling very menacingly out the window and when I looked out there was a giant coyote in the street looking at our house. I always wondered how she knew it was there. Could she have heard it from inside the house? Smelled it somehow? It seemed silent to me as it loped off down the road.
Of a more innocent nature were her stuffed animals that she loved to shred. She didn’t do it in the first sitting, she made them last a while, thank goodness. She’d start by daintily pulling off the eyes or nose, anyplace where there was a hard piece to pull off. Then she would surgically extract the stuffing through that tiny hole until it was all over the living room. Since the skin would still be in more or less one piece, we would still play fetch or tug with that for a long time.
Dinner guests would always laugh in amazement when they would lean back in their seats and find that there was a toy left there in case they were in the mood for a little after dinner throw.
Her absolute favorite toy were those rubbery pigs that honk instead of squeaking.
Her absolute favorite food was ice cream. It’s the only time she would actually beg.
She hated when you would run over rumble strips in the car, especially after Huey had passed and she was more anxious on car rides. She got worse with time, eventually needing to be leashed in the car so she wouldn’t frantically jump on the driver or on Grey in his car seat if you went over one. Sometimes it couldn’t be helped when passing or in construction sites. We would always say, “sorry Lue!” And I have kept saying that even now that she’s gone.
She started to get arthritis in her back right hip that caused her to have a “trembly leg”. I hated that she wouldn’t just lay down and relax on long car trips, she would stand up and surf the entire time. I knew that had to be hard on her aging joints and that impaired hip. So I got her a soft kennel that was intentionally a size too small. It forced her to at least sit down on those long car trips and then she could lean on the walls for extra stability. It sure was a change from the younger dog who would ride on top of piled belongings on road trips and who would go 4 wheeling with us in our topless Jeep, hanging out on the fenders for the best view.
And while we’re on the topic of her being young and in cars… enjoy…
But even as she aged with her trembly leg and her slower pace on hikes, we thought we still had plenty of time to enjoy thunder cuddles, share ice cream cones, and be just a little annoyed with her fetch obsession.
The Final Adventures
Her last backpacking trip was Grey’s first. We tackled the final remaining 40 miles of the West option of the Colorado Trail. So now, she and I had truly done it all. It was probably just about when she first developed cancer (according to the hypothesis of the vet), but wasn’t showing any symptoms yet.
It was a truly magical trip with absolutely perfect weather and views that went on for miles without a building, telephone pole, or human in sight.
There were shady forests and sunny flowery alpine fields, snowy banks and babbling streams. I really think Lucy got to enjoy taking it all in. The cover photo of this page was taken on that trip. You can read the full article about that trip by clicking here, but I’ve gathered a few Lucy centered highlights below…
After that, we got to explore a new area when John got assigned a work project in Steamboat Springs.
Lucy had her last normal hikes during my mom’s visit at the end of September, 2023. We had perfect weather and beautiful fall colors. First we had a lovely walk through the woods to a stream crossing. (Can you spot Lucy in the last photo?)
As my mom battled altitude sickness, we consoled ourselves with a tiny stroll on an old railroad bed. Lucy (of course) found a ratty old baseball she wanted to fetch.
“Grandma” improved enough to walk to an area I thought might be promising to look for arrowheads. She certainly has the eye for it.
Then we had a more intense uphill hike to a waterfall.
After that, she did a little run with me on the road beneath our property and then hiked up with me to place my game cam up above our lot in the National Forest. I was thankful for her company in an area full of big wildlife. At the top, she dug out a hole for herself to rest by a fallen pine.
On October 2nd, I left for a week long backpacking trip with some fellow moms in Yellowstone. We would be baby free and I was really looking forward to the camaraderie of like minded women out in my favorite National Park. I had always wanted to go when I could leave the road and day hikers behind and feel surrounded by its wilderness. (I’ll be writing the article about that trip soon. Subscribe to get updates when new content is released!)
October 3rd was Lucy’s 11th birthday. I sent John a message to make sure he gave her a few throws and give her extra pets from me. I consoled myself with the knowledge that there would be more birthdays to share with her. John babysat her and Grey while working remotely full time at Serenity. He noticed she spent a lot of time by herself in a little dug out by the fire pit. He didn’t think much of it at the time, he certainly had his hands full. It only made sense later that perhaps she was making a safe space for herself to die. Those were her last days at “her park”. I am desolate to know that I missed that and her last birthday.
I rejoined my family in northern Utah on October 10th. John had made the drive with Grey and Lucy to get some help watching Grey while he was working. We have a lot of relatives there. After a few days, I realized I hadn’t had to fill Lucy’s food bowl since I had been there. She always just ate whenever she wanted, and would go a day or two only eating her treats and Dasuqin pill I always dropped on top each night. I asked John if she had been eating before I got there and he wasn’t sure she had. He had been really busy balancing full time work and full time parenting and wasn’t paying much attention to the one who took care of herself.
When she still hadn’t eaten any food the next day, we discussed the possibility that she had reached that point in her life when she was only going to eat “the good stuff” from now on. Huey had done that, eating way more treats than food in his later years. So I started feeding her more treats. Then she stopped wanting those and stopped eating her Dasuquin pill which she had never done before. I was worried about how that would affect her bad joint. I started feeding her pieces of steak and chicken and eggs, whatever we were eating. The in-laws started commenting on her behavior, noticing she wasn’t acting like herself. She was listless on our little walks around the park and her coat seemed dull. She suddenly seemed frail and skinny. I checked her poop for worms and looked inside her mouth for rotten teeth. Nothing out of the norm.
Maybe she’s depressed, I thought. She hadn’t been getting anything that could be called an adventure now for almost 2 weeks. So I tried to take her hiking with my cousin and his dog who lived nearby. His nine and a half year old dog was full of energy, chasing sticks and digging and barking at us when we were going too slow. His gray muzzle was the only indication that he wasn’t a 2 year old. Lucy on the other hand kept laying down to rest. I was busy catching up with my cousin who I hadn’t seen in over a year. It took John pointing out her behavior several times before I finally called a halt and turned around. We had gone maybe a mile. Looking at the picture now, it is heartbreakingly obvious that she was sick.
The next day, I had to coax her to eat even steak and by the evening we noticed that she was breathing really heavily for just laying around the house. Grey and I were supposed to leave the following morning for a National Park road trip together. I decided to postpone our start until I could take her to the vet.
We were far from our home vet and I didn’t have an appointment anywhere, so I went to the 24/7 animal hospital about 20 minutes away. As soon as I checked in, they asked me if I would financially approve an emergency stabilization protocol because her breathing was so labored and she looked so “pale”. I was taken aback. What emergency? I wondered. She just hasn’t eaten in a while. And how do they know she’s pale under her fur? Sure I thought she looked dull, but that’s because I knew the way she looked normally.
They whisked her away to an oxygen chamber and then got me settled in a room.
The vet said she could hear a heart murmur, which had never been detected in her before. She had just had a full geriatric appointment in January of that year, just 10 months ago. She was given a perfectly clean bill of health, outside of her mild arthritis. The doctor said coupled with the paleness of her gums, she was suspecting congestive heart failure and they wanted to do chest x-rays to check if her heart was swollen or if there was fluid in her lungs. After the vet left, I replayed the words “heart failure?!?!” in my head. The internet informed me that dogs can live 6 months to a year on medication with this condition. I texted John that this was going to be an expensive vet visit (because that was still a major concern at that moment). I spoke to my mom on the phone who had regular groom customers diagnosed with congestive heart failure. They had been coming to her for months already.
I sat back and reanalyzed our next year. I was obviously canceling this road trip with Grey. I was going to be sticking around a lot more, spending more quality time with Lucy since her life was going to be shorter than we had always expected. It was bad, but I was glad to get this heads up to start prioritizing her more.
Then the vet came back. The x-rays revealed nodules all over her lungs. There was a tiny chance that it was a fungal infection, but that was ruled out since she hadn’t been outside Utah or Colorado in over a year.
So it was cancer. And it was everywhere.
The doctor said I had the option to work with an oncologist to find the original tumor and identify the type of cancer. “But that won’t help right?” I asked. “It’s already all over her lungs, not like we can remove it.” She nodded sadly and told me they could give Lucy a steroid shot that might help with the inflammation and give her a chance to breathe easier. She might have a few days then.
I was speechless. I don’t know what I had really expected the vet to find for us. Maybe a stomach ulcer? Suggest a new type of food? Never in a million years would I have expected to hear the word “euthanasia”. But that was exactly what she was saying now.
I elected for the steroid shot and Lucy remained in the oxygen chamber, away from me, while we waited to see if it would help her.
I called John. He had to be on site in Denver for work on Friday (remember we are in Utah). It was Wednesday. If we got the 3 days, then he could quickly fly out and back in time to rejoin us to say goodbye. I would have a few days with her as my number one priority.
The doctor was not pleased with this plan. The steroid wasn’t working and she knew Lucy was struggling just to breathe. Of course, she couldn’t prevent me from taking her, but she cautioned me to count her breaths every once in a while. Forty breaths a minute would be a good sign. Sixty to eighty breaths meant she needed to come back in. She also sent me off with follow up steroid pills, some pain medication (although she did not think Lucy was in much pain, she just hoped the sedative nature would help calm her breathing), and some anti-nausea pills to maybe help her eat something.
I am thankful that I was able to be with her and that I wasn’t still on my backpacking trip or had already left on our next road trip. (Why on earth had I been planning so much time away from her?!?!)
I am thankful that I got to spend about 7 hours just laying with her in the sunshine in the grass while the autumn leaves fell down all around us.
My sister-in-law’s dog was just hit and killed by a car 2 days prior to this. She never got to say her goodbyes. I am thankful that wasn’t the case with Lucy. I am also thankful that she didn’t suffer long. The vet thought she only had the cancer for about 2 months and had obviously only started showing signs that she was struggling in only the last couple of weeks. In contrast, John’s dog Huey had a very slow growing tumor. I watched John lay and cry and hold Huey every night for 8 whole months, never knowing if the next day would be the last, watching him slowly deteriorate until it was time. Lucy would have found that quite undignified. She was juuuuuust starting to need left behind on some trips. Mountain biking wasn’t an option for her in the last year or 2. And even in the weeks leading up to her passing, I was questioning if she should still be coming on 5 mile runs with me. I didn’t think she’d be able to do long cross country ski trips this year. I see now that it was probably the very beginning of her being affected by the cancer rather than her actual age.
Regardless, she would have hated to outlive her life, getting too old and fragile to come on adventures with me.
So we laid in my brother-in-law’s backyard together and several of John’s family members got to say their goodbye’s in person. As John’s parents were saying goodbye, Grey butted in and reached out to pet her. Normally, she would bolt to another room in this situation, but she didn’t. She stood and accepted a few pats. He waved to her and said “bye” in his adorable little toddler voice. I hadn’t even prompted him to tell her goodbye. They had finally reached an understanding.
My mom Facetimed with her and was grateful to have just spent a nice visit with her just a few weeks prior. John got her ice cream which she lapped up without any hesitation. She also ate a bunch of her treats.
Her breathing was always over 70 breaths per minute, so I knew I would have to take her back in soon. My brother-in-law, Joey, had just gotten out of the hospital from a horrible case of pneumonia complicated by an auto-immune response that put him on life support. He was still on oxygen back at the house. He knew what she was feeling, struggling just to breathe, and it made me understand that I had to stop being selfish. Yes, I wanted more time with her. But I didn’t want her to suffer anymore.
I wanted to let her enjoy the whole day and decided we would go after sundown. John and I walked with her just around the corner to the nearby park and she got 3 little throws with a tennis ball she found there. Classic Lucy.
I sat in the backseat of the truck to help her stabilize on the turns and try to keep her calm despite her anxiety. There had been a shift change at the animal hospital, but the new doctor had already discussed our case with the previous one. She knew that we would be coming back soon and wanted her colleague to be aware of the situation. It seems weird to say, but it was kinda nice to hear this new doctor agree that the x-rays were alarming and she also suggested euthanasia. At least we had a second opinion. We discussed cremation options with one of the assistants while I sat on the floor and petted her. She would be sent to our house in a few weeks in a cedar box with a hinge so we could sprinkle pinches of her in her special places if we wanted to. We were also getting her paw print in sandstone. I chose the cedar because I imagined it would give off that pleasing woody smell when I handled it.
Lucy always sort of smelled like that, like sawdust and sunshine. Although it could turn into more of a hamster-cage-in-need-of-cleaning smell when she hadn’t had a bath in a while.
They moved us into another room with couches and tissues while they took Lucy in the back to put in her catheter. There was no back door to the hospital area in this room. Of course, there was no need for one here because this is the room where the animals died, not where they got further care. I kinda lost it a little when that sank in and I suddenly felt the weight of the grief that room had witnessed.
Lucy was wheeled in on a stretcher and I helped lift her down on her bed on the floor. I was glad that I had already experienced Huey’s euthanasia, so I knew some things ahead of time that I wanted for Lucy. Like bringing her own bed, for example, for her to lay on. I also knew that I wanted to be able to offer her a final drink, so they brought me a bowl. They also brought some cubes of chicken and peanut butter for a final snack. She scarfed down the chicken, but turned up her nose at the peanut butter. She used to always lick the butter knife after I made a PB&J so that surprised me. But perhaps it was too much sticky effort. She drank a lot from her bowl. I’m sure she was thirsty from panting so much.
The doctor had already left, telling us to take as much time as we needed and come get her when we were ready. We talked to her and pet her some more. John reminded me of all the silly songs I had made up for her over the years and asked if I wanted to sing them to her again. I did. I asked if he wanted to let her lick his face, which he doesn’t normally let her do. He tried, but she knew she wasn’t supposed to lick him, so she just leaned her face really close to his. I got a faceful of licks that I savored.
She rested her head on the edge of her bed and closed her eyes. I knew that was my sign. She was tired and ready to be able to rest finally.
John left to get the doctor. When she came, she reviewed the different medications she’d be using, which I had remembered from Huey’s last day. I was glad that I knew ahead of time how fast it would be. I held her head so it wouldn’t drop and let it rest gently on the bed. We were both petting her as I watched the last breaths coming in and out through her nose. Then she was still. The doctor checked that her heart had stopped beating.
After a moment or two had passed, I saw her nose twitch. I know that muscles will spasm after death, but I didn’t think of it that way. To me, that was my signal that she had entered the other side and already started sniffing around at all the new smells. She was no doubt looking for a tennis ball.
We stayed with her for a while after that. On trails, she would often get far enough away that she was about to go out of sight around a turn or down a hill. She would always stop there and look back to see if I would call her or let her go or point a certain direction.
I wanted to be there long enough that if she looked back on this new journey, she would still see us there with her.
When we got back to the house, Grey was there to greet us with a big smile. It was the perfect distraction from my pain. He proceeded to play his cousin’s keyboard that was laying on the floor, sometimes with his hands, sometimes by walking on it with his feet, and sometimes by sitting on it with his butt. When he did that, he would always look over at me with this impish smile on his face, like he knew he was doing something super silly. It actually made me laugh on a day that made me feel like I could never laugh again.
That next morning, John must have gotten up early and moved her bowls and food somewhere where I wouldn’t have to face them. It was my first day as an adult without her. The last time I had woken up without a dog, I was 22 and a senior in college. A major part of my life was just… gone.
The morning after that, I woke up to find a bunch of water vapor inside my phone case. It had been sitting all night on a bedside table, completely dry and away from any source of water. The case is actually supposed to be water proof and has delivered on that promise many times over the years. It was unexplainable how the water got in there. I thought perhaps it was a sign from Lucy, but couldn’t understand why she would have used water for her message. After Huey had passed, we are convinced he came to visit us about a week later and knocked over a picture frame containing a family photo of all of us on our very first backpacking trip together. A photo that had sat on a window sill without every falling for years before that. John thinks that maybe it was her way of thanking me for that last drink of water before she passed. Now that I think more about it, the background photo on my phone is a picture of her sitting in a snowy background from cross country skiing last year. Maybe she brought back snow and it melted.
Either way, I’m calling that my sign from her.
When we get her ashes back, there are a few special places I plan to sprinkle her, like our two regular parks, Crown Hill and Westminster Hills. There are three dig spots on our property that she made for herself to have a comfy spot to lay in the shade. I will leave some of her there too. I kept that last tennis ball we threw for her. I’m not sure really what I plan to do with it, but I’m not holding on to much else. I’ve already donated her food and treats to a shelter. Her coat and bowls and some toys went to my dad and his 3 dogs. I know there will be more to give away when we are able to return to our house after 4 months of traveling while we have a renter. There are more beds and toys there. I am hoping to find them good homes with my friends. I am keeping her sleeping bag for Grey to use. Maybe after a good washing. I’ll probably keep her harness and backpack as mementos of all our adventures together.
On our last visit to our property, my first time there without her at “her park”, I started collecting special looking rocks to lay on what I will call her grave. It will be a way to honor missing her on walks and hikes.
I got a tattoo of Lucy on my forearm when I was 28. In it, she is the outline around the Canis star constellation. Her ears are perked forward, a front paw is raised like she’s taking a step, and her tail is lifted and starting to curl over her back. Her mouth is cracked open. She’s poised and alert like I always saw her on the trail. There is a big starburst where Sirius (the brightest star in Earth’s night sky) lies in that arrangement, right where her heart is.
Now on winter nights, I can look up and see her shining down on me, trailing just behind Orion the Hunter. And that will have to do for now until I can be with her again.
Additional Reading
Dog Days in California– Lucy’s first time seeing the ocean
Thru-Hiking the Colorado Trail (Coming soon! Subscribe for updates when new content is released!)
Backpacking 40 Miles of the CDT… Baby on Board– Lucy’s last backpacking trip
Gear for an Adventurous Dog
It feels a bit crass to have gear referrals in a eulogy. I hope that in some small way, Lucy’s adventurous spirit will live on through these recommendations, if it helps you get out there and explore with your best friend.
Links provided will take you to Amazon to purchase. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. There won’t be a link provided if I can’t find the item on Amazon. Check back often as I plan to partner with more sellers soon! Anything linked here is something that I actually own and use, unless otherwise noted. There are some rare instances where an item is no longer being manufactured, but I found an equivalent product by the same company.
Out on the Trail
Ruffwear Dog Sleeping Bag (I took this to a tailor to separate the two halves and make the zipper run all the way around the bag. That way it could be stored evenly on both sides of her pack.)
Musher’s Secret (Great for keeping snow balls from forming in paws, but I discovered that cooking spray works just as well and is perhaps a little easier to apply and spread it all over… whatever you use, I learned to also coat the top of the paw, not just the bottom.)
Flexi Leash (It seems like this style of leash is going out of fashion for some reason, but I used them all of Lucy’s life. I couldn’t imagine trying to be on a trail and having to manage leash slack while hiking. I prefer that these leashes are long enough for her to go ahead or linger behind for a moment to sniff and then just “ziiiiip” back up when she comes closer. I have this one because I like the bright colors when walking by a road.)
Kong Running Harness and Leash (Couldn’t find on Amazon.)
Top Paw foldable, soft-sided dog kennel (For car rides, couldn’t find on Amazon.)
Nutrition
Victor Hi-Pro Plus Dog Food (for active dogs and puppies)- Couldn’t find on Amazon, recommended by a dog nutritionist who mentioned that Victor is one of the few brands that doesn’t bake out the glucosamine.
Dasuquin Pills (glucosamine, MSM, and chondroitin all in one)
Hyaluronic Acid Drops for Dogs (Recommended by my stepmom, Charity, who has worked with older and arthritic horses. Restores joint function.)
Toys (Lucy would want every dog to have at least one of these…)
Chuckit Soft Frisbee (Lucy chipped teeth and bit her tongue on more traditional hard frisbees, so I liked these ones a lot more. I think she did too, because she could shake them ferociously and let it slap back and forth.)
Treats (I went through a phase of researching companies with limited and high quality ingredients in their treats. Here were several brands that met that requirement and were easy to find through Amazon or Chewy or the store. Lucy loved them all.)
Milo’s Kitchen Chicken Meatballs