The circle of life continues

Yesterday was bittersweet. We said goodbye to a grand old dog and welcomed a new puppy into our lives.

The pup’s arrival was expected, but Jem’s demise, although certainly no surprise, sure wasn’t planned for the same day.

We’d gotten Jem shortly before we moved from Bozeman to Malta 14 years ago, however, I always thought of him as a Belgrade dog because that’s where he’d been born. And like that blue-collar community, he was a blue-collar dog.

He retrieved everything I shot, including a winged goose that was nearly as big as him. Never a fast dog, with a stocky build that belied his athleticism, he nonetheless maintained a pace that was hard to match.

Keeping up with Jem kept me in shape.

All my dogs have loved to hunt, but none more than Jem. He slowed down a bit after he turned 10, but hunted for two more years. He flushed and retrieved his last bird – a sharptail -- a couple of seasons ago on the CMR National Wildlife Refuge.

He was a sweet soul, rarely getting into dust-ups with other dogs, and we hosted plenty of them over his lifetime.

I do, however, have two parallel scars on my forearm from breaking up a fight in the living room between Jem and Edub’s dog Xena, who had always gotten along with each other before, and always did after.

I buried Jem on a high bank above the creek where years earlier he had fallen through the ice. When I found him he was swimming in circles, waiting to be rescued. He’d also survived run-ins with barbed wire and rattlesnakes. Like the honey badger, he didn’t give a s….

An enthusiastic lap dog, he would climb on anyone who would have him, make himself comfortable, and go to sleep. Always a big eater, he stopped eating last week and we knew the end was near.

When I laid him in the ground as the light was fast fading from a smoky sky, coyotes began to howl, close enough that Ace, who was with me, started barking.

I drank too much when I got back to the house, and by the time I stumbled into bed it was well after midnight. There was no sleeping in the next morning, though. Dot began to cry at about five AM, and I got up to let her outside.

The circle of life continues.

Parker Heinlein is at [email protected].