It's About That Time!

Summertime, that is!

Okay, so maybe it's still early Spring but a girl can dream and I've got spring fever in the worst way.  My wisteria is blooming, the grass is greening up, and the days are getting longer.  It won't be too long until it's warm enough to take a day trip to Buffalo Lake with a couple of friends and a pack of dogs. 

It might look a little something like this. . .





When a kiddie pool just won't cut it. . .



Load up a few of your best friends. . .

Make the most of your time together with a little close bonding on the drive over. . .

That kiddie pool's got nothin on this!

Take time for a little sunbathin'. . .

And a romp on the beach. . .



Then commemorate the day with a family portrait.

Mekka: Rainy Day Blues

"Her dark brows raised to accomodate the upward lift of her eyes as they watched my progress."

It had been raining for two days straight. The world outside the window of my little house was painted gray. Clouds hung close to the earth, heavy with their burden of yet unspilt precipitation. The west Texas streets, having not been built with monsoons in mind, had turned to canals.

That morning I had made the best of being trapped indoors by painting the walls of my kitchen a warm shade of green. Several windows were cracked for ventilation and the sweet must of rain rode in on a breeze. Mekka lay on her bed in the living room with her head resting on her front paws. Her dark brows raised to accomodate the upward lift of her eyes as they watched my progress.

When I finished, I cleaned my brush, tapped on the lid of the paint can, and then stood with hands on hips and looked out at the water that meandered down my street. Clumps of debris had caused sporadic eddies to form and the combination of dirt and dark asphalt underneath gave the pseudo river a mucky brown hue. I looked over my shoulder at my dog and she popped up as if I had called her name. It was long past time that we did something outside of the house and she had been waiting on any indication that I was ready to do so.

I laughed at her as she did an excited dance over to me, soft woofs punctuating her lithe, snake-like moves. Bending over, I roughed the hair on her shoulders and she swiped my chin with a quick kiss.

"You want to go out Mekka?? Wanna play in the rain??"

Yes, yes!! I thought you'd never ask!!

Her eyes sparkled and she bounced up and down on her front feet in excitement.

We walked down the entry hall and I opened the heavy inner door. We both gazed out of the storm door at the streams of water, one winding up the road and and one pouring from the sky. Our breath making two foggy circles on the glass.

"You ready??"

A great plumed tail waved wildly in answer.

I punched the lever and together, as girl and dog, we burst over the threshold and into the rain. We raced about erraticly, both of us enjoying the reprieve from the house that had been our prison for two days and the cool sensation of water splashing up, over, around and down onto our bodies.

Mekka whizzed past me as I stood in the middle of the river-street and let out hoots of encouragement. Her rear end was tucked up underneath her in a flat out pig run and water exploded up in the air from the force of her churning feet.

An attempt to goose Mekka as she ran by resulted in a scramble as the flimsy plastic of my flip flop popped and gave way. I lost traction and landed with a splash on my backside in the murky water. Sitting up, I raked sodden hair from my face just as something hit my chest with enough force to knock me back down. Shock gave way to laughter as I found myself being mauled with love by my soggy dog.

I wrapped my arms around Mekka's great neck and hugged her to me. The joy on her face was a reflection of my own.

***********

Always a water dog. . .in a lake on a trip to Santa Fe.

Mekka: An Ill-Advised Escape

Bo, Mekka, and me when Mek was about 9 weeks old

It was the year 2006 and I was in my second year as the assistant women's basketball coach at Lubbock Christian University. I was living in a house that I owned and Mekka was six months old. I also had an Australian Shepherd that I had adopted from the vet clinic named Bo.

Bo was a mature, neutered male and was rather large for the breed but had beautiful blue merle coloring and a pair of ice blue eyes. He was a truly good dog with a horrible case of separation anxiety that I'm pretty sure was the reason that he came to be an adoptee to begin with. He had been with me a little over a year by this time and I took him with me everywhere. By everywhere, I mean work, class, church. . .every-stinkin-where. I had a little Jeep Wrangler and I had taken out the backseat and the windows so that Bo had shade, a breeze, and plenty of space because he spent a lot of time there. Oddly enough, the little escape artist had no wish to leave as long as he was in that vehicle.

So when Mekka came he was less than enthused by his new job as puppysitter. He still got to come with me most of the time but there were also times that he and Mek were left in the backyard. Stupidly, I thought that he would be more likely to stay if he had a companion. I was wrong. He just took his little charge with him.

My little house was only 5 minutes from the university but to get there one had to go via the underpass of the major thoroughfare in Lubbock: the Loop.

On one of those days that I had chosen to leave my children (or dogs, if you prefer) at home my cell phone rang on my office desk. Expecting a return phone call from a prospective athlete or fellow coach looking for a scouting tape one can imagine my surpise when it was none other than an employee from one of the local cemetaries. Specifically, the cemetary just up the road from the school.

"Lubbock Christian University, this is Coach Wilson."

"Hello, this is Belinda at Resthaven Funeral Home and Cemetary. I believe we have your dogs here."

At first, my mind was thrown for a loop. My dogs? At the cemetary? I mean, I've been guilty of driving to the bank when I meant to go to the dry cleaners but I realized it before I tried to cram my clothes into the tube. But my dogs at the cemetary?? Surely not.

"My dogs?", I said.

"Yes ma'am, your dogs. Their tags say their names are Bo and Mekka and this was the number on them."

"Oh, no. I mean, yes ma'am, those are my dogs. I'll come right over and get them. Thank you so much for calling."

"Well, sure. They're really sweet. They were just trotting right down 19th street. Not on the road or anything, just toodling on down the cemetary. I saw them through the window so I thought I'd see if they had any tags cause I sure would've hated to see them hit."

"Okay, I'm leaving right now. Thanks again."

"We'll be right her under the awning waiting on you."

I pushed End and grabbed for my keys and purse. On the drive over, the whole two blocks of it, I alternated between cursing my nutty, blue-eyed Aussie and saying prayers of thanks that they hadn't been hit and that the lady had been kind enough to actually go out of her way to stop them. It wasn't until I was about to pull in to the parking lot of Resthaven that I realized that in order for Bo and Mekka to have gotten to this point they had to have crossed the Loop. I could picture it in my head clearly: Bo, in his working dog trot with a look of fierce determination on his face and Mekka, tall and gawky, ears pulled back with worry, her tongue hanging out, and struggling to keep up. All the while, cars whizzed by, some honking in warning, and others having to stop to keep from hitting them. My stomach turned over at the mere thought.

I shook my head and cleared it of the nightmare. Under the awning, just as promised, were my dogs. Bo was leaning against the black skirt of a stately older woman. His tongue was lolling out of the side of his mouth and he gazed up at her in adoration as she stroked his head. Mekka was lying on the sidewalk nearby with an exhausted expression on her face. She had a front leg on either side of a bowl that had probably only moments before held water.

When I stepped out of the Jeep Bo immediately trotted over, his expression showing nothing less than pride. No doubt he believed he had accomplished his goal. In fact, he had done one better: instead of having to come all the way to the school, as was his intent, we had met halfway. Perfect!

I opened my hand for him to place his muzzle in and continued walking toward the woman and Mekka. Mek's tail beat the concrete as she recognized me and then she immediately flopped to her side and raised one hind leg to show me her belly. I bent to rub it and then looked up to the guardian angel named Belinda. I noticed the long, white hairs clinging to her black skirt.

"Thank you so much. I live just over the highway, they must've crossed it to get here. I'm lucky they made it this far and I really can not thank you enough for calling."

"Oh, you're welcome. They're nice dogs and I sure hope someone would do the same for me if mine were lost."

We made small talk for a bit longer as Bo danced between us and Mekka caught her second wind and then I loaded them up and took them home.

Bo would escape many more times in the three years that I would have with him after that, before lung cancer would take him from me in the spring of 2009. Mekka never went with him again. I can imagine him asking her just before he made his exit and her raising her expressive, dark eyebrows at him as if to let him know that she thought him crazy. She was nothing but confident in my love for her and harbored no doubts that I would return. That and she was a big believer in energy conservation.

Mekka: From Whence She Came

Mekka kisses 2009

I met Waltraut Zieher in 2003 while working at the vet clinic in Levelland. She and Doc had formed a friendship when they had worked together at the Lubbock Emergency Clinic some years ago. Wal trusted Doc and so she drove the 45 minutes from her home to our clinic just to see her. I had grown up with Labs and thought my dog, Jasmine, to be decent sized. Jas was at work with me that first day I saw Wal’s dogs and they made her look like a pocket pet. She brought one adult female, Iblis (Ee-bliss), and two six month old pups, Nugget and Nockerl. The pups were gangly with youth but Iblis was beautiful. She was a giant dog yet still very elegant. Her coat was long, straight and soft and the color of mature wheat, except for her face, which looked as though it had been dipped in the darkest of chocolates. The hair along her ruff was also black tipped as was the very point of her long tail. Her eyes were her best feature though. They were almond shaped, lined in black and were a warm mahogany brown. They were soulful eyes that spoke of an innate kindness. Jasmine had the same kind of eyes and she was by far the best dog I had ever had.

Waltraut was from Germany as were the dogs. They were called Leonbergers and she had been one of the first to import them into the US sometime in the eighties. She bred one litter a year and for the eight weeks that litter was with her they were given all the love, care and attention one would give a human child. They were weighed, fed, and cosseted, exposed to sights and sounds, different people and animals, and housetrained all within the safety of Waltraut’s puppy house and yard. She had a waiting list of prospective puppy buyers and she was very picky about who ended up with one of her dogs.

Over time I got to know Waltraut well. I dog sat for her several times and helped her with the O, P, Q, and S litters. My parents got two puppies from the first litter I helped with, Ondra Omyto and Osea Me. I was in college and living in an apartment at that time and didn’t get my first Leo until the P litter. I met my Perfect Mekka von Stutensee before she was 24 hours old. My dad gave me a hard time about the Perfect part but she was. She was absolutely perfect for me.

Jasmine, my black Lab, and Sidney

Waltraut and two of her Leo girls