This may be the most difficult blog I have ever tried to write, and possibly one of the longest. If you have read many of my blogs, the second part probably does not surprise you. Apparently, brevity is not one of my spiritual gifts. Then again, how do you neatly fit sixteen years of love, laughter, loyalty, and unwavering devotion into a few short paragraphs?
You don’t.
Not when there is still an extremely tender place in your heart that, even after all these years, has never fully calloused over. Before I take you back more than twenty-five years, let me begin with what has happened recently.
Last October, a starving, emaciated puppy showed up at my house late one night. If you do not know that story, my blog A Sweet Lesson in Trust will fill you in. More recently, my neighbor passed away, leaving behind a dog with nowhere to go. That would be Margot, my current squatter, who is sleeping beside my desk as I write this. Then there is Norman, the old farm dog who came with the farmhouse I rent in Eastern North Carolina, and his menace of a sidekick, Kitty. I do not use the word menace lightly, but goodness gracious, I sure do love them.
Just this past weekend, a tiny Pomeranian-Terrier mix wandered into my yard. Margot and Norman looked at her as though an appetizer had arrived. I intervened before anyone got ideas, and thankfully, my dear friend Jennifer adopted her. I’m beginning to think there must be a sign in my yard that only animals can read:
Strays welcome. Ask for Katie. She has the good treats!
Animals have always found me. Sometimes that care is planned, sometimes it arrives hungry, frightened, or uninvited in the middle of the night. But before this motley (or muttley) crew, there was Libby.
More than twenty-five years ago, I was living on a farm in Upstate New York with three young boys. We wanted a family dog, but I had specific requirements: big enough to roughhouse with the older boys, gentle enough for my little blond baby boy, and loyal enough to protect us all.
Basically, I was looking for a bodyguard, babysitter, farmhand, and best friend, all wrapped in one furry package. Most importantly, she had to be a rescue. I visited countless shelters, but never found my dog.
Until one day.
I visited a local SPCA and asked whether they had any puppies. They said no, but as I was leaving, an employee suddenly remembered an Australian Shepherd/Lab mix in the cat room. They led me to her, and there she was. My brown-eyed girl. My Queen.
The moment I saw that beautiful brindle puppy, I just knew.
There you are!
We named her Libby, although her government name was Libitha Louise Ives. She grew up alongside my boys, wandering between the house, barn, fields, and wherever her people happened to be.
She also developed a love for corn.
One summer, my boys were repeatedly blamed for leaving corn husks scattered across the yard. Husking the corn was their responsibility, but they insisted they were innocent. “Libby did it” sounded suspiciously like the farm-boy version of “the dog ate my homework.”
Then a neighbor saw Libby walk into the cornfield, select an ear from the stalk, and carry it home in her mouth. She peeled it herself and ate only the kernels. It really was the dog!
She also gave us plenty of worry. One night she didn’t come home, and I searched everywhere, driving around and calling for her well into the night. Then, in the wee hours, Alex suddenly came running downstairs.
“I KNOW WHERE LIBBY IS!”
After barn chores, he had given her a ride home beneath the cap of his pickup because all three boys were crowded into the front. When they arrived, everyone piled out, and he completely forgot Libby was still in the back. She never barked or made a fuss. She simply waited for her family to figure out where she was.
I had never been so relieved and so furious at the same time.
Libby could never resist an open car door. She would jump into the passenger seat, stare straight ahead, and become perfectly still, apparently believing that if she did not move, no one could see her. Only those beautiful brown eyes moved, slowly peering sideways to see whether she had been caught.
Libby always thought she wanted to go for a ride. What she really wanted was to be home.
We used to say she loved to GO bye-bye, but she did not want to BE bye-bye. The idea of an adventure was irresistible. The reality of leaving her queendom was not. My boys were her boys, and if you have ever raised a family on a farm, you know the head count rarely stays the same for long. One would bring home a friend, then came the cousins, neighbors, sleepovers, and a few extras who seemed to know exactly when I was cooking.
Some days, I was not entirely sure how many I was feeding or which ones actually belonged to me. I didn’t care, and neither did Libby. There was always enough food and love for all of them.
If someone came home with one of ours, that was good enough for both of us. Libby welcomed every one of them into her castle and added them to the brood she gathered, protected, and watched over.
Farm life also meant this crowd frequently carried the unmistakable fragrance of hay, dirt, sweat, livestock, and whatever questionable substance they had stepped in that day. To the rest of us, they were smelly farm boys. To Libby, they smelled like family.
I could say, “Go get Brandon,” and she would head straight to the barn. Brandon knew that when Libby appeared, he was being summoned. I could say, “Go get Gatlin up,” and she would trot into his room and nudge him until he got out of bed. I knew Nolan was at Grammie’s house because Libby would be waiting on her porch with her nose pressed against the door.
Even the neighbor who lived a couple of miles away would call to tell me Libby was at their house because one of the boys had gone there to play. No matter how far her boys wandered, she always knew where to find them.
Life changed. There were moves, a divorce, different homes, and eventually a move from Upstate New York to North Carolina. Some of my boys were still home; others were beginning lives of their own, but Libby adapted. One evening, Gatlin came for a visit. Nolan and I picked him up from the airport.
When we returned, Libby moseyed over to greet us, her tail wagging in its slow, familiar rhythm. She sniffed me first, then Nolan, and finally Gatlin.
She paused. Beneath all the unfamiliar scents of airports and travel, her nose found something she knew. That slow wag suddenly became a whole-body explosion of joy.
HER GATLIN WAS HOME!
Libby had adapted to different homes, different states, and a family no longer gathered beneath one roof, but she had never forgotten the sound, scent, or soul of one of her own.
She still wanted her entire brood tucked safely beneath her paws. I can relate.
As she grew older, her hips weakened, and climbing the porch steps became difficult. Michael even built her a ramp to make it easier. I knew our time with her was growing short. I simply was not ready for it, and then Hurricane Matthew came.
That night, the wind howled and the rain blew sideways. I let Libby outside before bed, but she did not return. I grabbed a flashlight and searched while trees were literally falling around me. I finally found her across the yard, disoriented and unable to find her way home.
I lifted her into my arms and carried her back to the house, stopping several times to rest because the Queen was NOT a tiny dog. I sobbed with relief because I had found her. Yet beneath that relief was a knowing I could not shake. Her entire life, she had cared for her family. Now we needed to care for her, and she did not know what to do with that. She never fully recovered after that night.
And I knew that it was time.
I scheduled the last appointment for Friday and took the week off from work. I lay beside her in her fluffy bed, crying while she slept. Every so often, she would open her eyes, find me nose to nose with her, and gently thump her tail.
I once read that dogs get gray around their muzzles because we kiss all the color off their fur. As I looked at her once-dark muzzle, now almost completely gray, I thought there might be some truth to that. If so, I was probably responsible for every last gray hair on that sweet face.
As I lay beside her, I remembered everything.
I remembered Brandon riding his snowmobile up the hill a little too fast. Libby would charge toward him with her hackles raised, barking as though she were giving him a stern talking-to:
Slow down! You’re going to get hurt!
But the moment he shut off the machine, her scolding was over. She would wiggle with excitement, so happy to see him, as though she had not just read him the riot act.
I remembered puppy Libby and baby Nolan somehow exchanging their most prized possessions. Nolan ended up with her puppy treat, while Libby sat proudly with his pacifier in her mouth, as though they had negotiated a perfectly fair trade.
I saw her jumping like a kangaroo through the hayfields, chasing barn cats until they realized she only chased them if they ran, and sitting high on the hill watching over her subjects.
I could continue adding story after story and never run out. If I included them all, this blog would need chapters, a table of contents, and possibly an intermission, but every story would say the same thing. Libby loved her family, and she spent her life making sure we were all exactly where we belonged.
For sixteen years, she gathered my boys, guarded our home, and followed us through every change. But in the end, we were all there with her, surrounding our Queen with love.
I will never know much about the first six months of her life before I found her in that shelter cat room.
I only know that she found us, and we found her.
It has been nearly ten years since she passed, and I still carry her in a place too tender to touch for long. Writing this feels like saying goodbye all over again, but it also feels like making sure she is remembered as she deserves to be.
After she died, I said I would never get another dog. Technically, I haven’t, but other dogs have gotten me.
God has a funny way of handling our “I will nevers.”
Jesus reminded His disciples that not even a sparrow falls to the ground outside the Father’s care:
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.”
Matthew 10:29
And Scripture tells us:
“The LORD is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.”
Psalm 145:9
If even the smallest sparrow is seen by God, perhaps it should not surprise me that He sometimes asks us to notice the creatures He places in our path.
Sometimes, I think God allows us to take part in His compassion. Sometimes it looks like opening the door for one more stray, giving a grieving animal a safe place to land, or stopping TinyDog from becoming a snack.
For me, it began with a brindle puppy in a cat room who was waiting for her family.
I never went looking for another dog after Libby.
I couldn’t. There was only one Libby; there was only one Queen. So no, I never got another dog, but the animals God knew I needed kept finding me.
And maybe that is Libby still at work.
Still gathering her brood.
Still watching over her queendom.
Still making sure everyone finds their way home.
Long live the Queen.
With much love, a little perspective... and always something to cast your line toward,
Katie ~~
"Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men."
Matthew 4:19