Sadness has Visited Salt Creek Acres

On Tuesday our wonderful dog, Luke, died.

It still makes me cry to think about it.

I loved him very much. We all loved him very much.

In case you don’t know Luke’s story let me back up about a year.

We first met Luke when we looked at a house for sale in Yamhill County. This adorable dog ran to our car before we even had a chance to get out of it.

Petting, that was what he wanted.

In May of 2014 we moved into that house and Luke became our dog. His previous owners didn’t think he would enjoy living in the city and asked if we would become his owners. “Heck Ya!” was the unified chorus.

Here is the first picture I took of Luke. Notice he wouldn’t look at me. He seemed to be afraid of the camera.

Over the next months we enjoyed getting to know him. He had our hearts right away. Being a Border Collie without any animals to herd he herded us.

Whether we were riding the lawn mower or the tractor, or just driving one of our vehicles in and out the driveway, Luke was always there running around us. His timing was amazing. Very rarely did he bump his head on a hitch. Even when he did it didn’t phase him. He just kept on herding us.

We learned right away that there were certain places that Luke wouldn’t go. It was as if he wasn’t comfortable in those spots. Maybe his previous owners didn’t allow him to be there. Another thing we were not used to was his reluctance to come into the house. He very much wanted to be in there with us, but he would take two or three steps inside (always with our encouragement) but then he would turn around and leave. I remember when the previous owners asked us to take him I asked where he slept, what he ate and was he allowed in the house. She answered “Oh, he would like to be in the house but we don’t allow him inside.” It took many weeks of coaxing and encouraging him before he became comfortable in the house.

Next was putting a bed in the house for him to have a comfortable spot to lie down. That took less time to get him to realize that he could sleep inside.

Eventually he would come out to the barn with us. When we got our first goats I wondered if instinct would click and he would try to herd them. Nope. He never paid much attention to the animals. Just stuck by our sides even when he went into a stall with Halle Berry and Brown Sugar (notice their hair standing on end).

We spent a lot of time in that barn and eventually Luke would meander on in and join us.

We continued to try to train him on things that would enable him to be with us more often. During the day we spend a lot of time downstairs, Michael in his office and the boys and me doing school. Teaching him to go down stairs was just as difficult as teaching him to be inside. He literally didn’t know how to maneuver up and down stairs. He was never able to learn to do it on his own and our dream of him joining us during the day was never fulfilled but he did, on occasion, let us help him down the stairs.

The whole time we knew Luke he was active. He loved to herd the boys when they would ride their little scooter. Here he is with Nicholas on the other side of the pond. It is December and the scooter got stuck in the mud. Luke seems to be saying “Hey, let’s go!”

The last new thing Luke learned was to go in and out a doggy door. That was no problem with the offer of a Beggin Strip.

Look at the difference in his attitude toward pictures. He didn’t mind me taking pictures of him at all. As a matter of fact, he was quite the good sport.

It was sometime in March when we noticed that Luke was sneezing a lot. I wondered if dogs could have allergies. About a month went by and  we noticed that the sneezing was accompanied by blood. First just a little. Eventually quite a bit.

We switched his dog food to a natural brand. We noticed that he wasn’t eating much. We thought that he just preferred his old brand of food.

He continued to eat sparsely. Then we noticed that he was bleeding out of his nose most of the time. Still thinking it was allergies  we tried to entice him with Beggin Strips and human food. The human food was a great awakening for Luke. It didn’t take him long before he was always in the kitchen with me wanting something good to eat. Thankfully the kitchen has linoleum floors so when he would sneeze we could easily wipe up the blood.

About this time we noticed that Luke didn’t herd us anymore. He walked slower and laid around more often. When we petted him we noticed that he was getting thin. Finally we took him to the vet. He was at 10 pounds under weight.The doctor ran some blood work. His white cell count was 28,000. Normal is 15,000. His lungs sounded clear but his upper respiratory system didn’t sound good. The vet said all the signs point to cancer and that it was probably in his head.

From the time we noticed his slowing down to last Tuesday was just a couple of weeks. He would lay around most of the day and then he would finally eat something and seem to get some energy back. This went on for a few days. Then when we offered him food he would try to take it from our hand but it would fall out of his mouth. 24 hours went by without him eating any food. Michael was out of town on work and I just couldn’t let him suffer any more. I made an emergency vet appointment to euthanize him.

Our neighbor, Dean, dug a grave for him next to our house overlooking the lower acreage where he loved to herd the tractor as Michael mowed.

I miss him so much. It is hard to deal with the fact that I killed him. I know I was trying to prevent him from suffering but I keep asking myself if I did it too soon? Could he have lived a little longer?

For the first 24 hours I couldn’t go out to the garage because that was one of his bedrooms. I would send the boys out to get me what I needed. My boys took care of me and tucked me in that night. I still don’t like going out there. I just look straight ahead. Every morning I almost expect to see him. Our morning routine was such a habit.

We thought Luke was 10 when we moved in. Apparently it is more likely that he was 15 when he died.

I think that we made his last year a happy one. I just wish we would have had many years with him.

Karen