Best Friends
We put our Australian herder, Sadie, down recently after she asked us to kindly do so. For 17-plus years, as I wrote here last February, she’d been a 24/7 worker, always tending to her humans (cattle being hard to come by in the suburbs). Then one day, she lay down on her dog bed, let her eyes fog over, and waited for us to get the message.
It took us a week, and then we took her to the vet. “Some owners wait too long, some not long enough,” he said, examining her. “This is perfect. She’s ready.” Yet another thing Sadie got exactly right and made easy for us.
In the car, our younger dog, Steph, watched Sadie go in and kept her eyes on the vet’s office door, ears up.
They couldn’t have been more different, Sadie and Steph. Rather than Dumb and Dumber, they were Diligent and All Dog. Steph isn’t interested in looking smart to the humans.
Her talents are prehuman, smelling a million scents in the faraway woods, running helterskelter after them, and then returning to her pack’s warm bed to calmly await the next scents. Yet Sadie, ornery about the dogginess of other dogs, took to Steph from day one. Steph got her to lie near and chill. She let Sadie nag her to behave. When we hiked, Sadie hard on our heels, Steph would disappear in a blur before circling back to break-dance, bark, and try to get Sadie to play. Outrageous! Sadie would bark. But then she would play, sort of, herding her sister a bit before letting her bolt free like a receiver out for a long one.
When the vet finished, I softly touched Sadie’s warm body. It was beautiful to feel her finally completely at rest. The closest to this calm she’d been was lying next to Steph.
A year ago, I challenged you to prove that your dog was smarter than Sadie. The stories you sent cheered us all. Now please go to rd.com/petpals to share a special story of pet friendship. RD’S Best Pet Pals contest honors our animals’ profound capacity to bond. And thank you, as always, for contributing so much.
Bruce Kelley, editor-in-chief