Rest in peace, Anniemoosh

Our dear dog has fallen victim to the snowy Big Bay road. She was twelve.

Last winter we witnessed that Annie was too deaf and blind to sense cars and so since then we've been keeping her on a leash unless we're out far from traffic. Now and then of course she'd get free and come back, and I regret to say we started letting her out on her own on occasion this past few months.








I picked her up from a sled dog farm in Skandia in August when she was about a year old and the people there had decided she wouldn't be much of a sled-puller. She had never been in a car or house and the first night wouldn't even stay in the house where we lived in Marquette. She and I slept in the backyard.

She never did get too civilized, in fact she was such a scrapper at parties that I used to joke to myself that she gives bitches a bad name. So we stopped taking her to parties and for the most part there was peace with the neighbor dogs.









An old dog dying seemed a small tragedy at first. But digging her grave yesterday was so sad. I sang the Bob Dylan song "He was a friend of mine" only saying "She" instead.

There's a shadow in our house where she used to be. When a piece of popcorn drops to the floor or when I get the urge to go outside before bed. It's just sad and that's that.



This picture is from a couple years ago when our neighbors' dog Alice was hit by a car.


Today we took our time saying goodbye before burying her body in a spot where we can plant an apple tree in the spring as a memorial. It's never easy to say goodbye to your loved ones, but we all felt better after talking about it together in a snowstorm.


She was a good dog. She never learned any tricks and didn't always come when called, but we lived harmoniously with her. When we were new in the woods and I often came home late and had to walk the last quarter mile in the dark, she would be there waiting for me in the driveway. She was a darn good dog.