Gracie and Ernie

I told the story in the last post about Gracie, and how she came to live with us. There are so many stories that can be told about her, it's hard to know where to start.

Not long after we got Gracie, Syd was a candidate for city council. While she was going door to door campaigning, I'd go along and take the dogs on leash. This was just a week or so after she came to live with us. At one house, a little girl answered the door, and when she opened it, her big nasty Rottweiler came rushing out, snarling and running straight at George. Gracie squared off right in front of him and did that junkyard dog snarl again, and the Rotty screeched to a halt, turned around and ran straight back into the house.

In the fall of 98, about a year after we got Gracie, Syd and I traveled to Germany to visit our friends Peter and Elsbeth. While we were there, we bought some of those ornaments made from decorated ginger cookies and coated with shellac. Handmade German cookie ornaments. We got one for each grandkid and some extras, I think about a dozen total. We had them, along with our other Germany purchases on our dining room table. We left for a while, and when we returned, we found that Gracie had snitched all the cookies and ate them (likely with George's help.)

Gracie would climb up on the cupboards and steal food with abandon. We had to carefully put food out of her reach. George was too lame to be able to do it, so we knew it was Grace. But here's the odd thing: after George died, Gracie stopped stealing food. Completely. Could George have been putting her up to it? Stranger things have happened.

Gracie loved attention. She'd always climb up in anybody's lap if she got the chance. Little kids could "dress her up" with blankets, etc. and she'd leave them on, loving the attention. She acted reallly lovey toward everyone, but I don't think she was actually very affectionate, except to Syd and me. But she was really affectionate toward us.

We moved to our "new" house just a couple of months after we lost George. When George first died, Gracie was quite happy due to the added attention she got from us. First, she was suddenly the only dog, and second, we fell into that part of grieving where we showered attention and affection on Gracie to assuage our grief from losing George. She loved it. But by September or so, she started showing signs of anxiety from being alone too much of the day. So Syd and I started thinking about adopting another dog.

We found a website that featured senior dogs up for adoption locally. There was a dog featured that was a male Aussie/Lab cross. We loved the Aussie part of Gracie, and thought he might be a good match for her. We contacted the website, and arranged to meet him one evening at the Creston school. He was a big old calm, friendly guy, black and gray merle, with a big head and feet, and a short stubby tail that, when he wagged it (often), looked like a propeller. His coat was long and unkempt. I took him for a short walk on leash, and he was very attentive to find out what I wanted from him. He and Gracie seemed to get along fine, but with unremarkable interaction. His name was Bandit, which is exactly the kind of name Syd and I do not like. We like our dogs to have people names.

Bandit's owner adopted him as a puppy, along with his sister/littermate from a person in Walmart's parking lot. Bandit was five years old. His sister died some time before when she was hit by a car. They'd always been allowed to run free. The owner had to move to Tennessee and couldn't take his dog. He asked for references, so we gave Rick Myers, our vet. Rick's assistant Judy said she talked to him when he called. He had numerous questions and kept her on the phone for quite a while. Finally Judy got impatient and said, "Look, I wish to God they'd adopt me!" So we passed, and arrangements were made for the guy to bring Bandit to our house.

Gracie had always done this thing where she'd try to play with other dogs, and sometimes people, by turning sideways and bumping against them. I called it "butt bumping." Other dogs would just look at her like she was nuts. But when Bandit came in and she tried it with him, he immediately jumped back and turned and bumped her. She was visibly delighted, and you could see them bond instantly. Bandit's owner was delighted.

So we had a new family member. Before he arrived, we'd decided on a new name. At first, I had the idea that we should call him "Bert" but that wasn't quite right. Syd and I talked about it and agreed, but couldn't decide why that wasn't right for name (we liked it ok.) The next day it hit me. His name should be Ernie, which was why Bert was close, but not right. Bert and Ernie of course are the names of the two famous Sesame Street characters, but more importantly, was the name of the cop and the taxi driver in "It's a Wonderful Life."

Not more than a week or so after we got him, we spent a long weekend at Rye Creek Lodge near Darby, Montana. Rye Creek is this wonderful place with modern log cabins located on the property in such as way as to be very private and distanced from each other. Each cabin is fully furnised and has a private hot tub. Best of all, you can take your pets. When we first inquired about taking Gracie, they replied by email, "Of course Gracie is welcome, and you and your wife can come too."

The cabins are surrounded by mountains and there is plentiful wild game always around. Shortly after we got there, I was unpacking the car. I guess Syd accidentally left the door open, because suddenly Ernie burst out of the door and took off running lickety split up the mountain toward a herd of deer halfway or more up the mountainside. I started screaming at him to come back, knowing that if he went over the top of the mountain after the deer, I'd likely never see him again. I was terrified. He ran after the deer, oblivious to my calling him. I kept calling, whistling, but in the mountain air, my voice was swallowed up and seemed ineffective.

Suddenly, probably at least 200 yards up the side of the mountain from me, Ernie stopped like someone put on the brakes. He whirled around, looked right at me, pinned his ears down alongside his head and came running at full speed straight toward me. When he stopped, he almost ran into me, and I praised him and petted him and knew at that moment that we had bonded and he was my dog.

We still have Ernie, and while he's aging, he still has his silly moments, and he's still my very good dog.