Dogs of the North The Pack Hagar

In Memoriam

She was the result of a back yard breeding. You know the kind. One person says to another person, "Hey! I have a cocker spaniel and you have a Cocker Spaniel so why don't we let them have a litter." Those words always amaze me. "LET them have a litter", as if you are somehow doing the dog a favor. So of course they never bothered to research the health history of her bloodlines, and, whammo. Somewhere down the line, someone like me ends up with a Cocker Spaniel who dies of hemolytic anemia. I can't help but believe it was her breeder who killed her.

She was a naughty puppy. Poor and irresponsible breeding resulted in a terrible problem with submissive urination. That dog would prove she was submissive to anything that moved and to lots of things that didn't. Certain voices would set her off. Take Dan Rather's for instance. I'd come home from work, kick off my shoes, flip on the news and the next thing you knew there'd be a puddle under the dog. Someday I really ought to write and tell him... I, of course made matters worse. Uneducated and uninformed as I was, I assumed this was a behavioral problem and tried to correct it. It took a perceptive and understanding vet to explain that such behavior was physiological and not behavioral, and to teach me how to treat it. Believe it or not, I ended up with a pretty terrific dog.

She was cute. Just darned cute. The first morning after I brought her home (I lived in Philadelphia then) a neighbor walked by with his Great Dane while the puppy and I were sitting on the stoop. She ran behind me and hid, but as soon as the GD and his owner had turned the corner she tore down onto the sidewalk and barked her head off at him!!! Her own big dogs seldom gave her cause for alarm. She would bark ferociously to scare them off her food.... once the door to her kennel was securely latched and she was safely inside it!! She ran and played with them and aside from an occasional show of wimpiness (for appearance sake primarily - she was a princess and had a reputation to protect) she did just fine by them. I believe that her motto must have been: "If you can't run with the big dogs, stay on the porch."

Hagar was a sweetheart, and often a stinker. She had a passion for plastic bags. She shredded them into a gazillion pieces. She ran away one time and when I found her she was down the street shredding a huge garbage bag as fast as she could. When I hollered at her to stop she shredded faster. And she had this thing about barking at birds. It didn't matter what time of day or night, if she heard a bird all hell broke loose. If she knew she was about to go outside she would start barking in the house just to let the birds know she was coming.

She was a happy little thing, and she showed her delight in being alive by turning round and round in circles in front of me just because I said her name. Eventually, Hagar found her place in life. You might say she got a job. I began to take her with me to visit home bound members of my church, and she did presentations with me at nursing homes and to various groups within congregations. She, with my other pets, co-presided at a service of the Blessing of the Animals. She was a natural. When my Aunt Mary was in her later months of life, she lay bedridden and too depressed and despondent to communicate. I drove Hagar to Ohio and laid her on Aunt Mary's bed. My aunt spoke in long sentences that day, and she seemed for the first time in several years to have genuine joy. What the rest of us could not give her, (not to mention all the professionals who tried) she freely accepted in the form of a little lop-eared dog.

Hagar was a sweet and unassuming soul, who took joy in serving people, and in sharing with them free and unconditional love. She is missed not only by me and the animals who shared her home, but by those whose lives she touched.

My Gosh! It's Moses the Rabbit!