Bob, the Wonder Aussie, has changed. In the past year he's slowed down. When we hike he now lies down whenever he can, when before he'd charge down the trail ahead of me. Then got stomach problems. I used to feed him kibble and table scraps to the vet's horror, but now it's just kibble, or sometimes a little rice. Then he got clingy. Now he sleeps in in the morning until I call him to breakfast.
It took me a bit of time and thought to figure out what was happening. We'd go out in the morning, just like every morning, so he could run out to the fenceline and do his business. But it became infuratiating. I'd be in a hurry to catch a train, and he'd just balk and wait for me to tell him to go. Bob, I'd say, we've done this every morning of your life. What's the story? Now, he's all the way out there, and sometimes he'll just stand there staring at me, as if he's making sure I won't go away. If I have to clean snow off the truck, or put something in the truck, I have to do it after he's finished. He's like an old man, now, who needs constant attention.
It's hard to see, and harder to watch, but I guess it's inevitable.
He was quite a pup. I picked him up from his breeder. I wasn't even sure what an Aussie pup looked like, and when I saw him, I thought, that is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. Tall and gawky, with a big nose. Aussies are typically black, white, and brown or a blueish color called merle. Bob is all black. He was the last of the litter because no one wanted him. He was no good for breeding. Maybe that's why I liked him. My breeding is questionable, too.
The breeder had already named him Bobby, because he looked like a little bear. I thought is was kind of a wuss name, but it did seem to fit, and as he got older he just grew into Bob. He still looks like a little bear cub. A couple of times in the mountains people coming along the trail have started when they saw him.
He was carsick the whole trip home. Fifteen seconds after pulling out of the breeders he stuck his head down on the floor and vomited. Then he rode the whole way home drooling in my lap. My pants were soaked by the time I got him home. He was carsick the first year of his life. Every time we went somewhere he'd throw up within the first minutes of leaving the house. I can't tell you what the truck smelled like. I didn't give up on him, though, and suddenly he got over it; now he's still the best little traveler. "Truck" was one of the first words he knew.
He still wants to go everywhere, and nothing stops him. Last summer Sue and I were down on the Cranberry Highway on the Cape, and we thought Bob was in the truck. My cell phone rings and some guy is telling me there's this little black dog running around in traffic on the highway. I was scared out of my mind, and when I got outside the minute he saw me he made a bee-line for me. I had left the back window open and he had jumped out and run up to the first store we went into. Another time I was up at the corporate headquarters of Eastern Mountain Sports in a meeting, and the receptionist called the person I was meeting with. Do you have a little black dog, he asked. Yeah, I said, why? Bob had jumped out of the truck, run around the building, and was barking at the main door. I came downstairs to find Bob surrounded by all of these women, including the vice president of Web development, the person I was there doing work for.
A buddy thinks I should get another puppy now, as if I have time for that. I don't have time for myself much less an Aussie pup. But I think he's looking out of me. People have said they don't want to be around me when he goes. I'll be devastated. My buddy thinks that having another dog around will soften the blow when Bob, bites that big bone in the sky, as Sue says.
I'm not looking forward to that day either.
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