Killian (1998 [or thereabouts] — 5/22/08)

Come down outta that tree and fight! (Photo by the so-called “old guy” with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

So goes our beloved Killian, bar none one of the neatest dogs we’ve ever had.
Killian was a rescue Irish Setter, which means he’d already been tossed out of prior homes — we heard two.
He also was a field-setter; not as big or hairy as a show-dog.
But he also was extremely spunky; which probably contributed to his prior toss-outs. Reportedly he had knocked over a baby-carriage with the baby in it.
As a field-setter he was extremely driven to catch critters. At least 13 rabbits got dispatched; and who knows how many moles and rats and field-mice and chipmunks.
It got so every week a dead critter was in our garbage. (“Are these people into animal sacrifice?”)
Killian got hit with lymphomic cancer a few weeks ago, and it hit him like a ton of bricks.
We tried to treat it with chemo, but the chemo had little effect.
The chemo reduced his infection-fighting and open sores broke out on a leg.
Plus there were pills every day — too many pills — mostly antibiotics and anti-nausea.
And never-ending blood-draws, and rectal thermometer checks.
The sores healed, but he grew more tired and weaker.
Yesterday (Thursday, May 22, 2008) he was afraid to stand up, shaking and trembling; and was down to about one-tenth of our regular walking distance. —He’d poop out.
We got him over five years ago — drove all the way down to Williamsport, Pa.; I think he was brought up from Baltimore.
The girl gave us the right of refusal; nothing doing! I ain’t turnin’ this dog away just because he’s small.
The poor dog was a terrified nervous wreck when we got him; too many owners and too many abandonments. We had to drive him home in a crate. Sabrina was along and dumbfounded.
We very shortly took him to the so-called elitist country-club, and he promptly yanked the leash right outta my hand.
We’d been warned he pulled like a horse, but I thought he was gone forever. He had run merrily off into the woods, trailing his leash behind him.
We called and called, and hiked down the snowy trail he had disappeared on.
Finally I gave up, and started walking dejectedly back up the road.
I heard a noise, turned around; and here he comes back up the road to me.
“I thought ya were lost. Where ya been?”
We’ve been to that park hundreds of times; nearly always on the leash, for fear of him running away.
Started letting him loose, like to chase geese, but one time he disappeared.
Had to hike all over to find him, and when we did, he was frightened; like “don’t do that again!”

(Note also faux duck-toy.) (Photo by Linda Hughes with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.)

I’d run, and Linda would run along with Killian, and they usually covered most of the distance I covered.
Killian always wanted to go with me; but we had to keep him leashed. (There was no running with a leashed monster, who could all-of-a-sudden bolt for the woods.)
Get out my rubbers and he started beating his tail at me: “Oh boy, we’re going for a walk (hunt); let’s go — I’m ready!”
Dashing madly around with one of his faux duck toys in his mouth. And out the porch-door he went like a bolt of lightning — immediately over to the kennel to look for the chipmunk. He got that chipmunk not too long ago — probably after the cancer had started.
He got so he recognized the sounds of our cars as they pulled in the driveway; and the sound of our garage-door opening.
We think he was abused in a prior home; he was always overly-submissive to pants-wearers.
Yet despite that, he seemed to like me more than Linda. Linda paid more attention to him, but he was always thrilled to do anything with me.
So now I am returned home and everything is the same. —It’s much like the first time I came home after the stroke. I looked out the kitchen window, and everything was the same as it had been. Yet it was different.
This is more-or-less the same; except no enthusiastic dashing spastically through the garage so he could check out the chipmunk.
His three faux duck toys remain where he dropped them last.
No one beating his tail every time I so much as appeared.
Also no one to enthusiastically prewash every plate, dish and pan, as he did every night at supper.
More-and-more plates got used, because he had to lick off every plate after each entree.
He was especially into sour-cream and yogurt.
He also cleaned off the aluminum-foil our fish had oven-baked in. Linda had to buy salmon from the MarketPlace supermarket in Honeoye Falls, because that had skin on it. Weggers salmon didn’t. I’d pull the skin off, and he’d hoover it up.
His greetings were less enthusiastic the last few weeks, but he kept whapping his tail at me.
And pill after pill after pill with little problem.
“Any veins left?” the vet asked. “This dog has had too many IVs.”
He seemed to have rallied some as we went to the vet. Jumped in the van on his own, and walked in without a stretcher.
“Have ya ever done this before?” the vet asked.
“Yes, but this is one of the niftiest dogs we’ve ever had.”
“They’re never around long enough,” Linda said. She wasn’t along, and had to work at the post-office.
We probably could have waited another day, but there was always the possibility of him dying each night, or that he might crash in the backyard.
We also didn’t wanna have the possibility of him crashing over the long holiday weekend, and requiring euthanasia at a strange place — like the emergency vet in Henrietta, where they hospitalized him almost a week.
Killian makes the fourth dog I’ve put to sleep, and probably the youngest. We’ve lost five: Sassy ran away and was never seen again.
At least I did it at the right time; perhaps two days too late.
Casey, our first dog, had bone-cancer on her mouth; but was probably our best dog, although Killian is almost equal.
Casey’s tumor had closed off one eye, and made it very hard to drink.
But she didn’t wanna get euthanised — she was a fighter. (She’d been hit by a car, and it almost killed her.)
I always felt I was too early; so I was probably too late with Tracy, our second dog. —Probably almost a week or two too late.
Tracy developed degenerative myelopathy, which means her back end gave out due to nerve deterioration in her spinal-cord.
It got so she’d crash in the backyard trying to go to the bathroom.
We tried to get her to go on newspapers in the garage, but she would have none of that: “I’m a clean dog!”
Sabrina apparently had liver-cancer or something, and the tumor ruptured after a gay gamble at the park, and she got extremely weak very suddenly.
A vet diagnosed the cancer the next day with ultrasound, and we pulled the plug that afternoon; i.e. on time.
Sabrina was the very classy dog — always did her master’s bidding: “I’m jumpin’ in that van no matter how hard it is; the Boss wants me in the van. Get outta here with that ramp!”
Sassy disappeared well before Tracy died — I’ve always felt I failed her. My ability to search was compromised by the stroke. —It makes me give up too early.
My regret is that she probably starved to death. We can only hope she wandered into another owner — which partially explains why I grab lost dogs and try to call their owners.
We did this last year with a big buffoon who seemed to be lost.
So now I have time to fill: the time I was setting aside to walk the dog. Like every afternoon around supper-time. Killian used to paw me at this ‘pyooter; like “Hey; what’s the deal? I know what time it is. Let’s get going! Shut that thing off!”
And the so-called elitist country-club; three or four mornings per week.
I’m sure we’ll get another dog; probably another rescue Irish Setter. But probably not right away. We’d like to do the mighty Curve, and always loathed putting a dog in the slammer just to go to the Curve.
Dogs have the right priorities.
What I remember most about Killian were his eyes; they weren’t like any Irish Setter we’d had before.
They were the eyes of a rapacious hunter: very steely and cold.
He also was a smiler.
This morning (Friday, May 23, 3008) the bunny-rabbit was inside the fence. That rabbit would have been dead meat if Killian had been around.

“Killian” was our dog; a rescue Irish-Setter. He was over 10; we never knew his exact birthdate.

RE: “‘Old guy’ with the dreaded and utterly reprehensible Nikon D100.......” —My macho, blowhard brother-from-Boston, who is 13 years younger than me, calls me “the old guy” as a put-down (I also am the oldest). I also am loudly excoriated by all my siblings for preferring a professional camera (like the Nikon D100) instead of a point-and-shoot. This is because I long ago sold photos to nationally published magazines. My wife used the same camera.

“Sabrina” was our second rescue Irish-Setter, who died in March 2007.

“The so-called elitist country-club” is nearby Boughton (“BOW-tin”) Park, where I run and we walked our dog. It was called that long ago by an editor at the Canandaigua Daily-Messenger newspaper, where I once worked, because it will only allow taxpayers of the three towns that own it to use it. We are residents of one of those towns.

“Linda” is my wife of 40+ years. Like me she’s retired, but she works part-time at the West Bloomfield post-office.

I had a stroke October 26, 1993.

“MarketPlace” is an independent supermarket in the nearby village of Honeoye Falls. “Weggers” is Wegmans, a large supermarket-chain based in Rochester we often buy groceries at.

“Henrietta” is a rather effusive and obnoxious suburb south of Rochester. The emergency vet was about 20 miles away.

Our dogs have been “Casey,” “Tracy” and “Sassy” (“the Sass”), and “Sabrina” and “Killian.” “The Sass” was a Houdini-dog. (All were females except Killian.)

The “big buffoon” was a large Rottweiler-mix named “Oz.” We found his owner.

The “mighty Curve” (“Horseshoe Curve”), west of Altoona, Pennsylvania, is by far the BEST railfan spot I have ever been to. Horseshoe Curve is a national historic site. It was a trick used by the Pennsylvania Railroad to get over the Allegheny mountains without steep grades. Horseshoe Curve was opened in 1854, and is still in use. (I am a railfan, and have been since I was a child.)