A Skunk Named Amy

Roommates Spike (the beagle) and Amy (the border collie)

It was out in the country and on lots of very pretty land. The place was wonderful in the summer, but in the winter things were a little cold. As I said, it wasn’t insulated and where the addition met the trailer wasn’t sealed. Our cat could let itself out by climbing up on top of the trailer and then down. It was the house where we once had ice floating in the toilet, and I once had to scrape frost off our TV screen in order to watch the morning news (I’m not exaggerating).

Still, it was our home, and Steve and I set about populating our home. Steve brought with him his black lab, Duke, and we also had his brother’s ex-girlfriend’s dog, Chester, who was a lab/chow mix. It wasn’t long before I brought home a cat, and after a visit to an animal shelter in Grayling in the spring of 1993, I also brought home a puppy about a year old and destined to be put down if she didn’t find a home.

According to the papers that came with her, the dog’s name was Amy Marie, but I just called her Amy. She was a cocker mix, a mutt, but she was a friendly mutt. According to the paperwork, she was 8 weeks old on June 25, 1992. She reminded me of my childhood dog, Chrissy. And just like Chrissy, whenever Amy was loose, she would run and run. When she was done exploring, she would return home.

When I became pregnant, we moved out of the stabbing cabin, and Amy along with the rest of the animal crowd moved with us. We moved one more time to where we live now, and again, Amy came with us along with a new baby. It wasn’t long before we had as many babies as we did dogs, and Amy reigned over all of the boy dogs.

Amy never had her own puppies. She was fixed after I adopted her from the shelter. She was so energetic. She did everything at full speed.

As the babies grew, they began taking Amy and our other dogs for walks and caring for them all.

Last fall, Amy got out of her kennel and for the first time in a long time, she acted like she did when she was a puppy and took off running. She didn’t come back.

We searched everywhere for Amy. We called her name even though we knew she wouldn’t hear us because she was going deaf. And we hoped she would find her way home even though she had cataracts over her eyes.

Days passed and added up to a week, and I realized Amy wasn’t coming back.

And then our neighbor called. She’d found Amy in a deep hole on her property. Amy was alive thanks to a puddle at the bottom of the hole. She was filthy and hungry, but she was alive. We brought Amy home and cleaned her up. I didn’t expect her to stay alive the next 24 hours, but she did. Amy was always proving me wrong. She gained weight and was perky once more, but she refused to leave her kennel unless she was on a leash. She didn’t want to end up in a hole again.

I didn’t expect her to make it through the winter, but she did. Her age was showing, though. She was still the sweet Amy we always knew, but she wasn’t hyper or fast anymore. Amy had become a turtle as old age set in hard and fast.

Today, Autumn went out to feed the dogs a special treat, and she came running back in. There was something wrong with Amy. Autumn and I went back out, and Amy was curled up in a dog house, breathing hard. She even began howling a bit. She wouldn’t come out of her dog house, and she seemed to be struggling to breathe. Autumn and I knew it wouldn’t be long.

We were both torn. Today was Maxine’s birthday, and we didn’t want Amy to die on Maxine’s birthday, and we didn’t want to make Maxine worry. But we didn’t want to see Amy suffer either. Maxine had friends here, and the birthday party was in full swing. It was difficult to check on a sick dog without alerting the party-goers.

Amy made it easier. She didn’t wait for us to make arrangements. She died. She was 17.

Steve buried Amy as I watched. She had a good life, and Steve reminded me she lived so much longer than she would have if I hadn’t adopted her once upon a time.

She was loved, and she will be missed. Spike, our beagle, will especially miss her.
Later, after cake and ice cream, Maxine opened her gifts. Among them was a Webkinz — a skunk. And in memory of a very good dog, a computerized version of the skunk came to life in our computer and was named Amy.