Like most of my canine companions, the midsize hound mix with the sad brown eyes came to me by a roundabout route, having passed through other owners and situations before landing on my doorstep.
Her most recent human was a woman who had worked for me for a while before moving on. Winona, not her real name, had found the young dog, not quite fully grown, wandering alongside a suburban road one day, looking lost. Her ribs were showing and a ribbon of swollen, bloody flesh marked the place where a badly overtight collar had been until very recently.
She was a strikingly beautiful animal, young, sable brown overall with mottled white accents here and there, and healthy despite obvious signs of advanced neglect. She lacked any signs of ownership, and by law and custom that made her fair game.
Sensing, perhaps, that her fortunes had changed for the better, the young hound hopped into the friendly stranger’s Honda without hesitation. Winona promptly christened her “Freeda,” as in “Freedom.”
She was sociable, bright, and energetic, and for a few months, Freeda was a welcome regular at my shop, where she basked, perhaps for the first time, in nonstop positive attention. But by the time Winona left me for another gig, she had tired of lugging Freeda back and forth. The new job did not allow dogs on premises, either, so for extended periods she was relegated to a barren back yard with little shade and no company whatsoever.
I learned of this bleak state of affairs when Winona asked me to help her move some things into storage. She was planning a move, maybe temporary, maybe not, to Oregon, chasing her deadbeat baby daddy, a charismatic man-child who had long dreamed of making a living on the itinerant weed-cultivation circuit. Winona couldn’t justify taking Freeda along because life might be pretty iffy for a while.
Or possibly forever. By long habit, Winona was given to seriously bohemian ways that were incompatible with conventional notions of success. She lacked even a trace of ambition, surrounded herself with layabouts and flakes, and went through men the way some people change their sheets. It seemed unlikely that this self-defeating pattern would change just because her address had.
I dreaded the possibility that one of Winona’s no-account friends might end up with Freeda. She was a good critter who deserved better. So I volunteered. Why, I said, don’t you leave her with me? I’ll take care of her until you get back. This was a lie, of course, because I knew full well that it would likely end up being a forever commitment. In a moment of uncharacteristic practicality, Winona said yes.
It was an easy transition. Freeda was well-behaved, easygoing, and got along just fine with Deacon, my other dog. A born companion animal, there was no place she would rather be than in the company of a favorite human.
Freeda’s most distinctive feature was the prominent ridge running down the middle of her back, flanked by mirror-image whorls at the tail end, the classic mark of Rhodesian Ridgeback ancestry. There were obviously other varieties in her lineage, though, because full-blooded adult Rhodesians are typically a hundred pounds, plus, and at her peak, with a bit of middle-age spread, Freeda was maybe forty five. By consensus, it was eventually decided that Viszla or Weimaraner probably made up the balance.
Like all mammals, dogs are sexually dimorphic, even if occasionally you cannot tell at a glance whether a given individual is male or female. This was not an issue with Freeda, who was the most extravagantly female canine you could ever meet. She was graceful and elegant, easily offended, sometimes clingy, often demanding, and sensitive to a fault. More than once I hurt her feelings without meaning to. I would be at my computer, forty feet from her station on the couch in the living room, cursing quietly beneath my breath at some random bad break while gaming. Within seconds she would appear, wearing an alarmed look, apparently fearful that she had somehow angered me. And in a flash, whatever irritation I was feeling would vanish in a flood of guilt at the accidental injury.
Freeda was friendly and sweet-natured, but with a trace of steel. If something about your vibe was off, you’d get the wary treatment. Every once in a great while, she would signal with perfect clarity that she did not trust someone. This was such a rarity that when happened it forced you to pay attention. Once, Freeda alerted to a customer as I was settling up with her. This completely surprised me because she had come across as harmless. But I found out not long after that this woman had served time for scamming somebody for a large sum. I somehow missed the warning signs, but Freeda had not.
In many ways, our dogs know us better than do our closest human companions. They know our habits and schedules. If we break from a routine they notice. Their extraordinarily keen senses deliver reams of data about our moods, our health, our state of well being. From across the room they can hear our heartbeats and breathing. Up close, they can hear the blood rushing through our veins and the low rumble of muscular contraction. Their noses tell them what we’ve eaten or drunk, our state of health and fitness. If we’re sick or troubled or anxious, they know. If we’re depressed or angry or sad, they know. They are exquisitely aware. I’ve long suspected that if we could somehow magically drop into their reality, we would be astonished at how much they perceive.
The years passed, as they are wont to do. Five years in, Deacon died after a hard six months of decline. Throughout this ordeal, Freeda was a steadfast, undemanding presence. The day of Deacon’s death, she joined the vigil, watching silently from a respectful distance, observing everything, saying nothing. For the month or so after, I was a wreck. She clearly understood my pain, and offered the steady low-key comfort I sorely needed. After my brush with death three years ago, she clung to me with a tenacity that was both reassuring and heart-breaking.
Sadly Frieda’s own time came recently, on June 6, after a brief illness. She went naturally, with almost no pain after a pleasant, uneventful final day. A few weeks prior she had suffered an apparent stroke but recovered. Then came another episode and yet another near-miraculous recovery. Her final night was reassuringly normal, but at one point she woke from a deep sleep and suddenly stood up. She stared intently into the dark, as though unexpectedly seeing some long-lost friend. In that moment, I knew.
I do not know her exact age, but she was with me eleven years and three months, and was at least three years old and then some when she came to me. Actuarially speaking, a fair life span, yet far too brief.
I buried her down the hill, at the edge of the woods, a stone’s throw from the creek we walked nearly every day. Stately oaks and elms arch high overhead, their leaves rustling in the breeze. Somewhere nearby a wind chime softly traces the pentatonic scale. A quiet, restful place.
Freeda’s passing struck me harder than I could have imagined. This one stings. Where there was life and light, affection, intelligence, connection, there now is yawning emptiness and deafening silence.
It’s been a rough few years, with setbacks and losses piling up one after another, and deaths, lots of deaths. You’d think I would be used to it by now. But in truth, it never gets any easier.