Perfection...More or Less: June 2023

Thursday, June 15, 2023

Eulogy for a little dog named Dustin

A walk through the garden Dustin knew like the back of his paw.

Soldier Beetle

Clematis viorna

Hanging By A Thread

Orb Weaver

Penstemon 'Husker Red' (Cultivar)

A mushroom someone else may identify.

Yellow Wild Indigo, Baptisia tinctoria

An area by the removed pond. Now it acts more like a rain garden.

Dustin's daily morning routine always included

walking the parameter of the back garden with his nose to the ground,

to pick up the scent of anything that had visited the night before.

Japanese Beetle, Popillia japonica

Seldom seen in the garden,

since we grow nothing it is attracted to.

An early bloomer still blooming.

Thickleaf Phlox 'Minnie Pearl', Phlox carolina

Wild Garlic Bulblets

Honeybee at birdbath.

Seed head from one of the yellow flowered thistles.

Giant Coneflower, Rudbeckia maxima

Dustin always ended his rounds of the garden conveniently

at the driveway gate,where he sat on his Coolaroo elevated dog bed

and conversed with his girlfriend Sophie dog across the street.

The funny thing is, on his visits to across the street,

he was always more interested in Sophie's owner than Sophie herself.

Purple Coneflower, Echinacea purpurea

with, I think, Leaf Cutter Bees.

Tarnished Plant Bug

A true bug, that as the name suggests, eats plants.

Hairy Sunflower, Helianthus hirsutus

Flower bud getting ready to open.

Northern Bush Honeysuckle, Diervilla lonicera

When the back gate became boring,

Dustin regally sat or laid down on one of the chaise lounges

to bark at the moon until he fell asleep for a nap.

Bumblebee on Bradbury's Bee Balm, Monarda bradburiana

Hover Fly on 'Green Eyes Wink' Daylily (not native)

Buttonbush, Cephalanthus occidentalis

Maybe a type of Ambush Bug, since its head is wide.

On any of Dustin's walks with Vic, day or night, potty break or leisure;

as he approached our driveway from the street,

he would plant his feet firmly apart and refuse to return

to the back yard or house until Vic took him across the street

to Sophie's house for a visit. On days when Sophie's owner was away,

he conned Vic into carrying him the rest of the way to the house.

Vic tells this last part differently, but don't listen to him.

Shrubby St. John's Wort, Hypericum prolificum

Purple Coneflower growing in partial shade.

DUSTIN

He came to us because someone lost him, I guess… anyway, this man was chasing a dog around the stopped cars way up ahead of me on that two-lane country highway to and from work. I watched as the man threw up his hands, got back into his pickup truck, and drove off on down the road away from the dog and the line of cars stopped behind him.

The dog was stopping traffic both ways, running scared around the cars and under them. I could see he ended up under a huge SUV stopped in the lane going the other way. As the cars in my lane inched up the road and past the SUV, the dog exited to the side of the road. I yelled out my window when I was one car from opposite the man in the SUV that the dog was out from under his vehicle, but I couldn’t guarantee he would stay that way.

Opening the door of my Toyota Solara with the intention of getting out to coax the little dog into my car, the little terrier bounded across the road, leaping behind my seat and onto the back seat of my vehicle like he owned the place.

It’s funny how intentions changed with this dog, from staying outside in his own cedar doghouse with a warming pad, to totally taking over the inside of our home. My bedroom became his bedroom, and he always tucked himself into his cave bed, when I tucked myself into my own bed.

We could see the end coming, but we always think there will be more time. He stood at that gate the morning of his last day as I laid down a throw rug to cushion him while he soaked up the warmth, watching and listening to the neighborhood before coming back inside.

At 5:30 the next morning, on the 9^th of June, Dustin woke Vic up and passed away on the floor as Vic comforted him. He was fifteen years and five months old.

It sneaked up on me. this heartache that settled in after Dustin’s passing. To not see him curled up in his favorite armchair or tucked into the sheepskin that was especially for him on the couch, the silence that once was filled with barking, the empty space by the side of my bed that once held a dog’s bed– I’m reminded over and over that our little terrier is gone.

I think my most favorite story I like to tell about him, is when he slept inside the house, but still had his beloved dog house outside. I call it the night Dustin Went Camping. I remember it was winter with snow on the ground, and while he was almost the perfect dog, he could be an obstinate little stinker, with a mind of his own.

After his dinner, I waited at the sliding glass door to let him back into the house when he returned from his potty break. That little rascal came up the long ramp onto the deck and disappeared into his doghouse in two seconds flat.

My coat on, I walked across the snow to his doghouse, opened the flap, and called to him to come out. Repeating the command several times, it was obvious he had parked his butt on the warming pad and was going nowhere. Back in the house, I decided to play the waiting game with him. Surely he would eventually start barking at the door.

Evening moved in, dinner was eaten, television watch, and at my bedtime, still no Dustin. I was a bit twerked off after I opened the flap, and called him out with not a peep out of him. It took me shoving a broom through the dog size door and flushing him out with a bit of pushing, and into the house for the night where he would be safe. This memory always makes me smile.

To all his friends, he was the perfect gentleman. To me he was a sweetheart with a few flaws thrown in. To Vic he was his little buddy.

We miss him.