ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, June 2, 1996 TAG: 9606030005
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: New River Journal
SOURCE: ELIZABETH OBENSHAIN
Last month, we lost a friend - one who shared our good times with such joy that it made the daily events of our lives seem an adventure.
Vonnie, my father's aging Australian sheepdog, has passed on to join those few other legendary dogs that carved a space in our family.
She was my father's eager companion on his farm rounds ever since the Christmas Day she was plopped down in front of him and peed on the Persian carpet in sheer excitement.
On weekdays, when my father came out the door in his farm clothes and headed to his battered pickup truck, Vonnie was just one quick jump away from her perch in the truck bed.
Out the driveway and down the road, past farm houses and through the quiet village of Prices Fork, she announced from the back of the truck in high pitched barks that she and my father were on a wonderful adventure this morning. "We're going to chase cows! Chase cows! chase cows!" she barked as the truck whizzed by the less fortunate dogs penned or chained in their yards.
How could you not feel life was wonderful on a spring day when your dog was shouting hallelujah from the back of the truck.
At the farm was total contentment - both for Vonnie and my father. If he was spraying weeds, she could chase groundhogs or doze under the truck.
Driving cattle was a little more problematic. Herding was in her blood. But not in my father's. We Obenshains lack the gene for dog training.
Sure enough, they had to work out their own odd partnership when it came to cows. If my father stayed in the truck, Vonnie intuitively knew how to herd the cows by herself. But let the boss get out of the truck, and Vonnie lost it. Doggie stress. She couldn't put it all together, and the cows wandered off on their own.
Back home, Vonnie proved herself a better guard dog than cow dog - too good on a couple of occasions when my father had to spring for a new pair of pants for an unwary visitor. But family members rested easier knowing our parents were well protected by Vonnie's loyalty and vigilance.
But best of all her traits for friends and family members, Vonnie was a one-dog send-off and welcoming party each day - even when her failing eyesight and hearing began to isolate her. She adored you with that unquestioning dog's love that ignores our less noble traits.
Lately, she had slowed until getting in that big pickup truck was more than her legs could manage.
She developed doggie dementia - wandering around the yard and hayfield in aimless search for something none of us could fathom. Despite our best intentions to keep her confined, she would wander off along the road and into the road in her confused hunt until finally the dog warden and veterinarian advised that her days should end.
Her departure prompted the same sympathetic words and musings from various friends and family members that might follow the loss of an aunt or cousin.
At a time when our lives too often seem like a bad day in a Dilbert cartoon, a dog can be the one thing that goes right, the one being who approves adoringly even our most awkward moves.
Those of us who have had a good dog friend find that they have defined a period of our lives as definitively as did a job, a city - yes, even a spouse. The Vonnie years were good ones for our family.
LENGTH: Medium: 64 linesby CNB