My buddy Shed: a tribute

Some day I may write about Shed, the dog I got from a classified ad in 1977 when I was 19.  I had returned from one year at Antioch College and was attending McHenry County College in Woodstock Illinois, living on my parent’s farm, and working on a construction crew.  “German Shepherd Puppies, $15.”  I didn’t ask or discuss the purchase with anyone, I just went straight over.  I was told by the owner that these were pure bred Shepherds.  The mother appeared to be, and the other pups could have passed for Shepherd probably, but it was the one big black fuzzy friendly one that came straight over to me, I thought almost like an adult would do.  She wasn’t a fully Shepherd pup, clearly, but I picked her up and that was all it took. Her name was Shed.

Some of the stories about Shed, which I might elaborate on, follow:

EARLY YEARS

Introductions

I showed her to my folks the next morning, and they were gracious in accepting this little bundle into the household.  I admit that I was a very attentive owner and Shed, who I also called “buddy,” was, for the next many years, probably my best personal friend.

Naming of Shed

Yes, she took a long time – I thought – to learn where to defecate and pee.  So, many accidents and mop-ups later, I called her Shithead, affectionately of course, and the name stuck.  I sometimes said it meant SheDog, but it didn’t.  There was nothing not to love about that little puppy, and I don’t believe anyone ever was really offended by that name.

Fell in a Well

Mom was working in one of the outbuildings (the farrowing barn) and had removed the heavy square concrete floor-plug from the well, leaving exposed a hole 1.5 foot square over the well that was maybe 8-10 feet deep.  The well was not filled with water, but it had pipes and valves and concrete blocks at the bottom of it.  Shed, trundling around the building, tumbled in without a sound in the falling, or afterwards.  When a flashlight was rounded up, there at the bottom she sat, looking up with interest at the faces appearing in the little square frame of light way above.

Freezing Storm

I was forgetful one night after letting her out before bedtime, and there she stayed.  She was just several months old.  It was a bad winter storm, but instead of seeking shelter she had huddled by the back door all night on the concrete stoop, fully exposed to the wind.  By morning she had melted a small hole in the ice which was more than half inch thick, all the way to the concrete pad.  She was so happy to see me and tired, but not troubled at all.

Exhausted

As a small pup, maybe 8 weeks old, I was surprised how eagerly she followed me on a quick jog around the farm.  She didn’t show any sign of fatigue so I didn’t slow down, and she raced after me through the high grasses, in the tire tread of the tractor lanes.  It must have been about 20 minutes and I was concluding that her stamina was endless as I approached the farm buildings and headed toward the house.  But as soon as she realized where she was she threw her legs out to all sides and collapsed flat out.  I realized that she had probably been afraid I was leaving her behind, and had been running for her life.

Lost her First Tooth

Some of my books said training could begin at three months, so that’s what I attempted.  First, I thought, she should learn to walk on a leash.  She though it was great fun to bite the leash instead, and once I gave it a tug to pull it out of her mouth.  It was a braided leather leash and one baby canine tooth had gone into a gap in the braid.  It snapped off clean and she made a facial expression I’ll never forget.  She didn’t yelp or howl, bark or growl.  She didn’t seem to blame me, or make any noise at all.  She just gave a long wince and her little puppy mouth turned into a little round hole in the front as if she was mouthing “owwwwwwwwwwwwwww!”

Training

I spend a good amount of time training Shed.  I’d bought a half-dozen books or so, but then just did what seemed right.  She could heel very well, and “heel close” meant stay right there, when we were crossing the street, for example.  I wanted her to trust me so when I went for a jog on our Pioneer Road sometimes I'd tie her along the way to a road sign.  Then I would trot nearly out of sight … and then return. In retrospect I should have left a note with her so no one “rescued” the poor abandoned dog, but traffic was very light at that time and it worked out well.  I think it had the intended effect, and this confidence in me worked out well at college later.

So she learned that I could be trusted; it breaks my heart now to think how it must have been, at her age of 6, when I went back to SIU for my master’s degree and did not take her!  At the time I was distracted by my own life and did not fully appreciate her loss.  But this is always balanced by knowing how well she was cared for by my folks -- who generously offered to take her on – and also knowing that she had the run of the farm, with all its little smells and animals, changes, and little mysteries.

At one point I wrote down all the commands or words that I knew she understood, because she would react to them -- and there were easily 50.  I taped the paper to the kitchen cabinet but did not make a copy of it though I wish that I had.  

Come/heel/sit/stay/stick around/go over there/no/yes/good/ok/treat/let’s go/get in (the car)/other side (go around to the other door)/wait/drop it/jump/over/go under/toy/leash … these were just some of them.  I would often put her through the paces, which she seemed to enjoy.

Chickens

When quite young she killed a few chickens.  They ran freely around the yard at that time, and it really upset me because I thought that was a deal-breaker for me being able to keep her. You can't have chickens running free and a dog that kills chickens; and the chickens were there first.  So I was more forceful in my training about chickens than I had been about anything prior.  I took a dead chicken and jammed it in her mouth and then punished her harshly.  From that day on she killed no more chickens.  But she would never again accept anything from my hand.  If I were to offer her a piece of meat, even, she would turn her head and tear up .. to her final day.

My Pillow

Another incident that happened once only was when we were both very tired and napping on the floor of my room.  I put my head on her as a pillow and we both slept soundly.  After a time I roused myself enough to crawl over to my bed to get a better sleep.  I was surprised to awaken and find that Shed had climbed onto my bed and wriggled herself under my head as a pillow still.  I’m sorry to say that my reflex was to chase her off the bed with a quick scold.  She never let me use her as pillow, ever again.

Climb tree

When she was young she actually tried to follow me up a tree and did get up the lower two branches, which surprised me.  I don’t remember which tree it was but my recollection is that it was quite a feat for a dog.  I had to help her down.

MIDDLE YEARS

Personal Characteristics

I never knew what it was of Shed that wasn’t full German Shepherd, but later when I got another dog I tried to find a match and settled on a Groenendael (Belgian Sheepdog).   It’s unlikely that Shed’s father was a Groenendael because they are rare; but whatever he was seemed to soften and sensitize her personality somewhat, compared to a fullbred Shepherd.  It also left one ear drooping while the other stood up.  This bothered me at first for aesthetic reasons and I even had taped a toilet paper tube in it when she was a puppy, to stiffen it – to no avail.  That failed trick came from one of my books.    Later, she and I would sit side by side in the back 20, overlooking the creek and her one ear would be trained to the distance, the other left for local sounds.  I found that if I mimicked her panting, pausing alertly just like her, I could experience the Back 20 something like she did.  The chirps, the creaks, the croaks --  I heard more of them with Shed beside me.

Water

She hated to be bathed, and suffered through it only under command and only (to my knowledge) by my hand.  I did not bathe her often.  Nor did she like to swim – but she would ride happily in the canoe, stock upright, still, and alert right in the middle, but she would not get into the water unless (on rare occasions) she thought she was being left behind.  This sometimes happened when we would canoe down the Nippersink Creek. She'd run along the bank and sometimes jump into shallow water to get to the canoe.

Bones, toys, and birds

She would protect her bones and toys in an interesting way.  If I whispered “I’m going to get it!  Iiiiiii’m going to get it!, and slid the tip of my finger from her forhead to near the end of her muzzle, she would curl her lips back until just  a little pad of skin was attached, just at the top of the tip of her muzzle.  It’s hard to describe, and I do have a short video of this somewhere.  I toyed with her instincts this way often, as I think she liked it.

I thought it was interesting to see what she did when I gave her a rawhide bone.  She absolutely loved that, and I wonder why I didn’t give her one more often.  But watching from the kitchen I saw the oddest behavior.  She walked slowly around the yard in the same odd circuitous path four times, then suddenly broke from the path in a fast trot, straight to the garden where I could almost see her from the window burying the bone and stamping dirt over it.   I went to garden to dig it up (I thought it a waste of bone), but I could not find it anywhere.  Since then I have seen very similar behavior in another dog.

She would chase birds in the field, but never catch them. It seemed to make her proud (or at least very happy) just to see them scatter. 

There was something nice about Shed that I never taught her, which I now think is quite unusual.  She would only defecate and urinate in tall grasses.  There was never – to my knowledge – a problem with poop on the lawn at the farm.  I don’t doubt it happened but I don’t recall a single pile.  I found out later, only with other dogs, that urine leaves dead spots on the grass.  I think there were none – neither at the farm nor outside my 4-room dorm at SIU where Shed stayed for 2 years.  In her later years this good habit ended, and as an elderly dog she would even poop while walking – once, I remember, she dropped a load like a horse, as she strolled passed someone’s picnic party. 

Fireworks

Many dogs are afraid of fireworks, I know. But not Shed. You could hardly restrain her when the sizzling, hissing, shooting, and explosions began.  She would lunge into a string of firecrackers growling and snarling, and sink her teeth in if she could, and then she would strut around proudly – you wanted to pin a medal on her.  This came as a surprise and there were nearly some accidents early on before I learned to tie or hold her.

Sleeping

Shed would wander pretty widely at the farm in her prime.  She’d often roam at night and sleep much of the day under the kitchen table.  One morning she came in, took her place under the table and fell asleep. Some time later she stretched and yawned, and when she opened her mouth it was just as if a skunk had squirted in the house.  In fact, one had somehow shot neatly into her mouth during the night.  Every time she opened her mouth it I was the same. I took her to the bathtub and washed it with tomato juice. That helped quite a lot.

When she would find and eat some carrion (yes, she had an iron stomach) you would know it by the rumbling and gurgling from under the table, and the moans (or were they sighs of satisfaction?).  She would often run in her sleep – you could tell by all four legs twitching, with little bursts of barking puffing through her sleeping lips.

She slept soundly under the table, but her favorite place to nap was on the picnic table just outside the house.  There she could keep one eye open for whatever interesting  might happen.

Doorbell

Neighbors across the way claimed that very late one night their doorbell rang and they found Shed on their front porch.  Apparently she wandered across the road and had rung their bell.  I was not happy about the crossing the street part, but impressed by the bell.  To my knowledge it only happened the one time.

Kicked by horse

Shed was probably 5 and didn’t bark much, but she did enjoy chasing horses and birds.  One day, in the corral, dad saw one of the larger horses catch Shed under the jaw with a solid kick, and Shed flipped through the air and landed limp on the ground.  I was nearby and didn’t see it happen, but came quickly.  I kneeled over Shed to check her injuries, and pressed my head against hers.  She suddenly awakened, got up, and walked quietly to the house.  I don’t think she bothered the horses quite so much after that day.

Lost in Rainstorm

One of the most impressive events occurred when I was asked by a family friend  to watch his house while he was on vacation.  Lou was an architect and the impressive house stood on a hilltop across the highway in Bull Valley, more than 9 miles from the farm. Shed went with me, of course, though I’m not even sure I told Lou that she would.  She slept in the house but stayed outside when I went to work – this was just something she could routinely be relied upon to do.  But, one stormy evening I went out with some friends after work and returned home at 10:00 or later.  Not only was I very late, but the storm was heavy and it went on and on.  Lots of wind,  in a heavy Midwestern downpour, for most of the night.  Shed was nowhere.  I called and whistled, and left the door open (a nice overhang made this possible) and I left food out.  I slept just a little as the rain fell and Shed did not appear.  I remember listening to Leonard Cohen’s Ballad of the Absent Mare and I think of this incident every time I hear the song still today.  The song (quite beautiful) ends with the mare appearing to the rider: 

Oh the world is sweet
the world is wide
and she's there where
the light and the darkness divide
and the steam's coming off her
she's huge and she's shy
and she steps on the moon
when she paws at the sky

And in the early morning, while my grief was solidifying I got a call from home: “Guess who is soaking wet and sleeping under the table?”   Shed had run all the way back to the farm in the dark, in a bitter rainstorm, 9 miles, a on a route that she had traveled once, in a car,  and to my recollection she hadn’t been paying particular attention on the drive over.

Hit by car

I was in Mexico traveling when Shed was hit by a car in front of the house.  She'd probably been chasing a rabbit I think she hit the car rather than the other way around.  She was bruised and limping but she recovered fully with just some scratches on her muzzle.  I came back early from the trip anyway.

Traveling

I did travel quite a bit with Shed, around the county, to and from SIU, and on road trips.  Wherever I went, she went, for the first 6 years of her life.  She would ride in the passenger seat, upright and alert.  She turned quite a few heads riding like that.  At one rest stop I recall a busload of Japanese tourists photographing her, very amused and impressed.

Harmonica

I played the harmonica back then, with more enthusiasm than skill probably, and it was fairly unusual instrument in the day.  I'm probably the only Shed had ever heard doing it.  I and a bunch of friends were hiking through the Shawnee Forest once when Shed disappeared for a while and then reappeared, high in energy like something really cool had just happened.  A short time later we came upon a small campsite with another group of guys and they shouted out "who plays the harmonica?"  I did, I told them and they all burst out laughing.  Apparently one of them did too, and Shed had charged up absolutely sure that it was me.  They had read the situation correctly.  

Sense of Smell

It wasn’t always apparent but Shed must have had an extraordinary sense of smell, judging from the following event.  I was visiting Jack in Maryland about 1982.  He lived in the country where he and his friend had built a kiln – there was a kiln-firing or party of some sort one day I was there, and – being a bit of an outsider, after a while and for no particular reason I decided to take a little walk down the lane away from the compound.  Shed didn’t see me go, but I knew she would both behave and wait for me.  The little hike lasted longer than I had expected because when I wandered off the road into a forested area I found what seemed like a natural amphitheater -- tall trees formed a fairly complete canopy overhead. There were low shrubs and grasses but very little understory.   I walked quite a ways in, checking some interesting patches of grasses, some abandoned vehicles, etc. – mostly just enjoying the stroll.  I decided to return to the road, but circled back to see more on the way.  The whole wander was at least a quarter mile.  As I approached the lane I saw Shed racing down it toward me.  On a whim I froze, having heard that dogs detect movement well but can’t make much out of still figures.  Sure enough, she got to the place where I had entered the glen, entered it herself (as if someone had told her where I’d last been seen) and, in full alert, searched for me.  I was in plain sight, maybe 40 feet away, but she gave up quickly, threw her nose to the ground and set off at a full run retracing my steps over the entire path I had taken.  I saw the entire thing because with no low trees the visibility was excellent.  I’m sure I had left no visible trail.  By the time she came up to me she was very happy and out of breath and I had gained new appreciation for her extraordinary sense of smell.

SIU

I found an off-campus dorm at Southern Illinois University, which I shared with three roommates who told me very clearly that they did not want a dog in the house.  I moved in without  Shed in September  and for the first Thanksgiving I went home and returned (with their permission ) with Shed for just the few weeks until I took her back for Christmas vacation.  Just before we packed up for the holidays, I was approached by all three roommates who asked me if I would bring Shed back to stay.  It worked out wonderfully for nearly two years.  It only became a problem when, a year on, one roommate graduated to be replaced by a someone with a feral, disobedient dog.  He argued that he should be able to keep his dog in the house too, so we had to allow it. But that was an entirely different matter.  Poop on the lawn, saliva on the walls, mud all over, smells, and no obedience whatsoever.

Perched on Fence

At Southern Illinois University in the late 70’s dogs were tacitly allowed on campus, and I was able to leave Shed outside any building with the command “stick around.”  Here’s where the training  came in handy because “stick around” meant I would reemerge eventually from the same door I had gone into.  Even if I had not been in a particular building before I could trust her to hang around as  I always made a point to exit the same door I had entered.  She would not hover and worry, but would wander and explore, and always close enough that I could summon her with my dog whistle.  One day, after lunch in the Student Center, I came out to find a small group of students trying to befriend her, amused that she seemed not to care about them whatsoever.  She was never one to seek affection from strangers.  I was heading another direction, so started off and gave a whistle.  Shed snapped to attention, full alert, but couldn’t pick me from the crowd.  Instead of running toward the whistle, she turned and raced up a nearby concrete ramp and lept, at half-story level, onto the concrete railing just like a cat might do.  Then she saw me, turned and raced back down the ramp and up to me.  It was exhilarating to watch, and she did impress and astonish quite a little audience that day.

Animal Control

I would ride my bicycle to campus, about a mile, and Shed would run beside.  I never carried a leash.  Whatever class I took, she would wait outside.  She would busy herself chasing squirrels and birds, wandering about, but she never went far.  She didn’t care for other dogs so was not tempted away, and she was indifferent to friendly strange people as well.  One day I took my first karate class in the Arena  -- a large building on a different side of campus from where I usually attended.  It was surrounded by mowed fields so there were no trees or squirrels and  -- for Shed – probably of very little interest.  When I came out, almost 2 hours later, She was nowhere to be found.  I called, I rode around the vicinity, I whistled, I went home and got my car and drove through campus, calling and asking about her.  I felt terrible. My last resort was to call animal control on the outside chance that they had nabbed her.  But she had had a collar with my name and number and no one had called, so I had little hope about that. 

Indeed, Animal Control had a dog that matched her description but they said she looked sick and had nearly put her down.  The dog they found was foaming at the mouth, as rabid animals do.  When I heard that I knew it was Shed as she had not been raised with other dogs and was nervous around them.  She foamed and drooled and lost all self confidence.  I rescued her immediately.  It turns out that someone had removed her collar.

Cold on a Camping Trip

One winter day at SIU I thought I would go on a solo camping trip, so I set off with Shed to the Shawnee Forest.  It was much slower going than I had anticipated because of the foot of snow on the trail.  No one had been in the woods before me and was a pristine as you might imagine, with all the crisp winter sights and sounds.  We slogged through the forest happily enough until night time.  I pitched the tent, ate a cold can of soup, fed Shed and tried to sleep.  Then temperature dropped (I had been reckless – at the time I thought adventurous – by purposefully not checked the weather forecast).  Surprise me!  But it was COLD.  I was freezing in my sleeping bag and Shed, next to me in the tent, was shivering too.  So I unzipped the bag, pulled her inside, and zipped it back up, barely.  Normally she would never have allowed that, and she was a little wet, but we warmed immediately and slept like babies all bound up like that.

Fleas and Tics

One thing that didn’t bother me as much as it should have was the fact that Shed got fleas and tics when she was in Carbondale.  Neither seemed to bother her much – in fact I was hardly aware she had fleas.  But one summer when I vacated my room to stay for free in the trailer park (watching a friends’ trailer), the flea eggs hatched and the fleas multiplied.  According to my landlady it was as if the floor was carbonated with fleas jumping, thousands of them.  She had the place exterminated.  I’m afraid that when Shed and I stayed one night at Cary O.'s apartment in Chicago we infested it with fleas as well.  As for tics, they were just a matter of course.  As long as she was in southern Illinois, if I looked for tics in her thick fur, they were there.  Dozens, often many dozens of them.  I remember pulling them off and tossing them on the sidewalk, all grape-like with clamp-mouths full of flesh.   Shed didn’t seem to mind one way or the other.

Tucson

The longest road trip she took was with mom and dad, out to Tucson and I came down from the University of Washington in Seattle, about 1987.  They were caught in a snowstorm and took a motel in the pass one night.  It was a great surprise to see her, and I did get some video of Shed on that trip as I had a video camera by then.   Again, when I left, I said goodby to Shed and the intense poignancy of the moment for her was somehow caught in a photo Ellen took, I lost, but will always remember.  I was smiling, young and off on my own.  She was looking at me intently and, it seemed, with dread. 

I believe we took her out to Tucson another year, as I have a photograph which I think was from 1983, the year Chuck, Deb, and I hiked the Grand Canyon – Shed was not allowed in the Canyon of course, because of the wildlife and burros.  I don’t remember her on that driving trip but she was so much a part of my life then that of course she was there. Only the photo proves it.

LATER YEARS

The Farm

I was not around much for Shed’s later years, but she couldn’t have hoped for a better place to live than Pioneer Farm.  She lived both inside and outside, enjoying the warmth of the fire and the changing of the seasons.  Mom and Dad, as always, were in constant motion and – while they weren’t the same sort of buddy to Shed that I had been, they were good friends and excellent caretakers.  I understand Shed followed Mom, in particular, wherever she went.  It’s not always easy caring for a dog and I will always remember their generosity toward Shed, and toward me by taking her in.

Saw a Deer

She used to love to chase rabbits, especially from the hill a large grassy field away from the farm buildings. Apparently from that angle she could see them well and there was no shelter except the trees and shrubs way across. Off she'd go -- she'd give those rabbits something to think about, that's for sure but to my knowledge she never killed one.

Shed was not young when Dad and I were driving back along the trails, Shed in the middle of the bench seat in the cab of the truck, when we saw a deer.  We were traveling  10 miles per hour maybe, but Shed shot straight over me, cleanly through the open window, stretched out in the leap like a deer herself, hit the ground and disappeared into the woods.

Run over by tractor

Mom was taking a group of girl scouts on a wagon ride to the Back 20 and Shed followed along as she did at that time.  She was 14 years old.  At one point she was distracted by something in the road and was caught by the narrow front wheel of a large John Deer tractor.  On this tractor the wide back wheels fell in the same track as the front ones, and Mom couldn’t break until both wheels had gone over.  Miraculously, Shed got up and returned maybe a half mile to the house, on her own.  She was in no mood for a wagon ride with young girls.  As it turns out, she had a broken spine and her intestines had been pushed through her diaphragm.  Mom and dad took her to the surgeon, at great expense I am sure.  She was repaired and her mobility was only slightly impeded for another good three years.

Death

Shed died at the age of 17, much older than dogs her size.  I dug her grave outside the house just where her picnic table stood while she watched – of course she didn’t know what I was doing but the memory of that is burned in my mind.  At that time I thought she looked OK, not ready to go.  But it wasn’t much later, as I was in Athens visiting Chuck and Jean, just before Isaac was born, when Mom found her standing with her head in the corner of the garage.  She was so weak and old that flies had laid eggs and her poor skin was infested with maggots.  Mom cleaned her up as best she could, and she and Dad took her on a last ride to the Back 20 which she loved, and then had her put down and called me.  I loved her enough that now, 25 years later, parts of her story still choke me up.  Her friendship changed my life and still means a lot to me.