She looks tired. Started the day out early chasing rabbits over on the rainbow trail. Then she followed me around the farm when I drove the ranger back in the woods and hauled up a bunch of firewood. We let out the whole pack and went on our usual two mile walk. Fed and watered everyone and went up for lunch. By then it was hot so we turned loose about six more dogs and went down to the river for a swim. Walked upstream a long ways with Buttercup and the rest walking through the shallow parts and swimming when we have to, or just want to.

Lisa’s pride and joy. She used to love to brag on Buttercup to the boys when they came up to hunt. “Which one is Buttercup?” they said. “She’s the one with the soft, brown eyes” Lisa would say. They still call her Brown Eyes.

She’s always there somewhere close by. Never underfoot or begging for attention but always keeping track of me. When you look in those brown eyes you see more intelligence than is common for a dog.

Mostly good but sometimes kind of scrappy with the other dogs. She slips off to go hunting sometimes when she shouldn’t. She’s getting older. Seen some things out there that scared her pretty bad. We have some things in common.

Late at night, no one there anymore except Buttercup, putting me to sleep with her soft snoring, sometimes growling and barking in her sleep, keeping the wolves away.

Last winter was rough. Plenty of deep snow and deeper cold. Buttercup hunted hard, getting it done day after day when the other dogs couldn’t or wouldn’t. Hours at a time. I like the cold. One day in the deep snow the wind was so bad there were trees going down. I couldn’t take it anymore and called her in. She wasn’t happy with me.

The vet said she has a grade 4 heart murmur. Said it’s loud. I can almost hear it without the stethoscope. Maybe she misunderstood what she heard. Maybe a stethoscope isn’t the right tool to listen to a dogs heart.

“They bred dogs for everything else, even diving for fish, why didn’t they breed them to live longer, to live as long as a man?” Peter Heller – The Dog Stars

Sorry if I gave the impression that we lost old Lovey, she is doing just fine and enjoying her teenage years.

During the warmer months I make this walk with the dogs as often as possible. We go about 2 miles. I almost never leash my dogs, they learn to stay with me.

“I ain’t the kind believes in ghosts, But some nights I get pretty close” Chris Knight – North Dakota

This happened last spring. It’s happened before. I don’t talk about it. I can tell the story this way though.

Windy was due any time and she was big. She was in a kennel at the end of my bed. Early spring cold and dark outside. Black sky, bright stars and deep quiet. I had a good fire going and the house was nice and warm. Nobody here but me, Buttercup sleeping on the bed, and Windy. I stayed up late with her, got up and checked on her a couple times during the night, but no puppies.

Fell asleep with the light on. I was sleeping hard about 4 AM and then Lisa was there, by the bed. She said “Wake up! Time to get to work!”

What?

“Get up! I delivered the first two puppies for you, but you need to wake up!”

I could hear a puppy crying and crying and I said Where is that puppy?

She said “By your bed. Time to get up!”

I finally got woke up. There was a puppy crying. Windy was in labor. Yep, she had two puppies. One was way at the end of the kennel and was cold and wet and crying. I tucked it in by mom and it quieted right down. Then I had to sit there a minute.

Lisa spent a good share of her life next to the sound of newborn puppies before she left us, right here in this place. The sound of puppies was the sound that called to her. Maybe it still does.

Windy delivered nine puppies and raised them all.