This page honors my companions, my friends and partners... the dogs that have chosen to spend their lives sharing what we had with one another.

Brittany

Brittany spent her days with me while I lived in Girdwood, Alaska. She is the pup featured on my home page. We skied, sailed, combed beaches and climbed mountains in one another's company. We were inseparable for sixteen years. She traded in her old form for a newer, puppyish one in early 1996.

Sweetie

 Sweetie came into my life in October 1998. She had been abandoned at the Willow, Alaska Fire Station and, when they could not keep her an EMT friend who works for them thought I might be ready for another pup in my life. I had not realized the immense hole in my life that Britt's passing created until this four year-old Dalmatian came to live at my house. She is sweet natured, mellow and very, very loving. I am blessed to have had her travel to me!

The photo below was sent by a friend.
I jokingly refer to it as "Why Sweetie was left in Willow."

Here is a piece I wrote for Brit in the fall of 2001:

All That, Gathered Into This

  It is February, the ground hard frozen, and I apologize, Brittany. I cannot bury you. I took for granted the two of us would see another spring. Hell, you and I had already seen sixteen.

I did call Hearthaven this morning, inquiring into cost of cremation. The cheapest would have meant some portion of the ashes of half a dozen dogs fired together for economy’s sake. Could have planned ahead, I suppose; but since the divorce and the bankruptcy, there hasn’t been much cash around anyway. Remember? It took us the better part of that day last autumn, rummaging the alleys for blocks around, to scrounge up the plywood and lumber to build that ramp off the deck so you could make it out and in from the yard. I’d been surprised to see you no longer able to leap the eight inches or so from the grass. Finished, I remember how pleased you seemed, scrunching up your blonde ears edged with white, waiting for me to scratch them, and so gently wagging your tail.

Just like you wagged it last night, nudging my shin with your gray muzzle to let me know it was time to go outside. Long and stiff-legged for both of us that journey was, from the study to sliding glass door. Long too your stay in the yard, slowly sniffing every inch of the fence’s perimeter before you reappeared, eyes glowing, in the light that spilled out into the night. Curious, I thought, how after you came in, you lowered your nose and, lingering, pressed your forehead softly against my lower leg. Then off you creakily ambled to the bedroom, curling up upon your cedar filled bed and favorite blanket, to wait my abandonment of yet another nascent poem and join you for sleep.

Perhaps, on some level, I was in denial, but last night I lost myself in nagging at line breaks, or assonance, or texture of a now unremembered gaggle of grammar and syntax. It wasn’t until you yowled that I awakened to the here and now… or rather, the there and then.

You lay struggling to breathe, groaning to the core of your small frame in profound pain. Then, in that agonizingly infinite moment, I knew much more than a few lines of poetry were in need of letting go. So, lying down on the floor beside you, I gathered you into my arms and cuddled up; the way we had begun our friendship.

Three, no, four hours we lay there, you periodically groaning, punctuating the darkness with shrill, staccato yelps. I stroked your body, reminiscing sotto voce; recalling sunsets sailing toward Augustine in our lug-rigged ketch with spruce masts the color of your coat, long nights curled together, like now, in snow caves near the headwaters of the Placer River, years of playing stick in the surf on Homer Spit, warm and sunny spring afternoons Nordic skiing through big hemlock to Winner Creek, you flying ahead, ears and tail high, clearing trails of squirrels and magpies.

Finally, as you trembled, no longer able to lift your head from the crook of my elbow, I awoke from the past long enough to consider your struggle in the present.  Bending near your ear, my lips brushing the fine, white hairs I whispered, “It’s ok, Brittany . I am going to be all right. You just go on ahead now and make yourself comfortable. I’ll be along soon. I promise.” With that, you closed your eyes, and slipped away.

Forgive me, but a below-zero February morning limits options. Now I struggle to figure out final stuff, driving toward Girdwood with you, one last time riding shotgun. I toss it up to the One who always watched over us. Soon enough, the highway straightens and I see those trees where you used to chase me chasing you, off toward Sunrise near tidewater.

Parking, I gather you in my arms. It’s been a while since fresh snow and walking toward the trees I remember as our trees is easy, the only sounds the crunching of crusty frost beneath my boots, an occasional whine of studded tires careening around the curves below Penguin Ridge in the distance.

A hundred yards off the highway I lay you down, below the high water mark, near the ebbing shoreline. Kneeling and kissing your nose, I repeat my promise. If I had a tail, I’d wag it. Were it possible, I’d lie this carcass down and ask the rising tide to take me too.

©2001, Michael S. Queen. All Rights Reserved