Adele Ferguson - Faithful retreiver found along the side of the road

WICCAN was a Labrador retriever my daughter Annette picked up by the side of the road some years back and, unable to locate an owner, concluded she bad been dumped and brought her to me.

For some time Wiccan would go down to the road and check out the cars going by, looking in vain, I figured, for her former owners. After she had been brought to my front door a few times by the paper lady and other drivers worried she would get run over, I had the yard fenced. She followed me everywhere in the house. If l was in my office, she was lying outside the door. If l was sitting on the couch, she was lying next to it. If I was in the guest room working a jigsaw puzzle, she was in there with me. When I got dressed in the morning, she came into my bedroom and lay down waiting for me.

Her only flaw was that she didn’t bark. She could, she just didn’t except on rare occasions and when my daughter Karen came to visit, in which case she would leap in the air and bark when she heard the car coming up the driveway. My daughters wanted me to have a dog that barked in case of unwanted visitors so Annette found a springer spaniel that needed a home. Daisy’s owner had her and a Labrador that picked on her, biting her, so she wound up with me.

AT FIRST, Daisy was afraid of Wiccan but soon they became buddies. One day recently, Wiccan crawled under my card table and wouldn’t come out. I dragged her out but couldn’t move her out of the hallway, so Karen took her to the vet. She had an enlarged liver with tumors that were pressing on her internal organs and it would be a gift to let her go, said the vet. We did so.

Karen brought her home and buried her in my yard, complete with a flowering shrub on top and a funeral attended by Daisy and Pimp the tabby cat. The sun shone on it when it was over, Karen said, and a bird sang.

A couple of days later, Daisy was not eating but throwing up. We didn’t know if she was missing Wiccan or was ill so back to the vet. Although she looked fine, it turned out she bad diabetes that required two shots of insulin daily and 24 hour care. Her quality of life was going to be poor, said the vet. So we gave in.

Karen brought Daisy home and buried her next to Wiccan.

WE WERE DEVASTATED at the loss. Rarely in my life have I been without a dog, but Karen said no more dogs. She couldn’t go through with another funeral.

I miss the dogs terribly. I wonder how Pimp the cat is taking it. She also had loved them, frequently planting kisses on their faces to their utter humiliation, and rubbing against them.

Last night, for the first time ever, Pimp jumped up into the shag-nag covered easy chair Wiccan slept in, carefully sniffing all around it, in a circle. Then she lay down in the chair and went to sleep. She was still there when I got up in the morning.

She got up for breakfast but before the morning was well along, she was back in the chair, sniffing all around and finally settling in for a nap. I don’t know if she wants to be close to the scent of Wiccan or if she just decided here was this perfectly comfortable chair nobody was using any more and now it would be hers.

I think she wants to be close to Wiccan. I think she misses Wiccan. I know I do.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340.)