My Skeeter

I was twenty-one years old when I picked out Scout from a litter of eleven Border Collie puppies. She was the only one that played with me and Dad instead of with the other puppies. Mine from the start. I thought she was a blue merle, but when we got her home from the Newberg farm, I bathed her only to find that she was snowy white. I stayed up at night to take her outside every hour to ensure that she was house-trained, and she went everywhere with me. She moved 15 times with me over the course of her life, and she weathered each change with grace.

So many friends… I had many roommates, and most of them fell in love with my crazy little BC. They played catch with her in the back yard at the 802 house, and snuggled with her on the couch. She loved them all fiercely, and remembered them if she saw them years later.

Scout escorted my cousin/ring bearer Will down the aisle at our wedding. People may scoff at having an animal in your wedding, that it trivializes the ceremony, but those people don't understand that Scout was one of the reasons why Rick fell in love with me. He liked her first.

Our careers happened, we moved to the beach, and Scout was in heaven. Close to our family and to the ocean, she came home to where we spent our first year together. My last walk on the beach before Ruary's birth was with Scout. We had a slow amble along the ocean, and watched a group of sea lions beyond the breakers. I treasure that walk, because I knew that things were going to change forever, and that our relationship was going to be very different.

My role, and Scout's, changed when Ruary was born. I didn't have as much time to spend with her, and the stress of a baby in the house took its toll on her. She aged quickly. As much as it broke my heart to watch, I couldn't really do much about it, because motherhood consumed me. It had to. But she was always there with her old quirks and her snowy white fur, standing beside me in the kitchen and hovering for scraps. Barking at nothing. Snapping at Dill. Until lately, when her body just got too worn out to take her any further.

That decision, that terrible decision… she stopped eating, and just laid down. She could hardly lift her head, let alone walk. She was too weak to even try to go outside to do her business. She was always so proud, obsessing over cleaning her fur if she ever got dirty, but she had turned yellow with age because she no longer had the energy. Scout called the shots, and was letting us know that it was time.

So tonight, we let her go. She didn't go without a fight, though. A tough old bird until the very end. My girl forever.
Scout, 1996-2011. My girl. I love you forever.