My Love of GWPs: I'm now a dog person

As my heart is breaking, I think back to my first dog.  Oh we had dogs when I was a kid, but they weren't mine.  They were just my responsibility because my mother didn't want to clean up after them.  She'd bring them home & announce that I had a new dog.  Great!  I actually grew up hating & resenting dogs.  And then I got my first dog as an adult.

In 1985, I was out riding my horse through the foothills of San Juan Capistrano when I came across a puppy on the trail.  I recognized the puppy as belonging to a pair of dumped/gone feral dogs.  The mother was a Doberman & the father was a German Wirehaired Pointer.  I'd watched them from afar many times as I rode.  I'd even been growled at on a number of occasions.  When I saw that puppy on the opposite hill, I rode over & looked around.  The parent dogs were nowhere in sight.  I got off my horse, scooped the puppy up & put her in the opening in the front of my saddle, & got out of there.  As I rode back to the stable with that flea bitten little thing on my saddle, I thought "if I were to keep this puppy I'd call her Pitiful Pearl".  I had NO intention of keeping the puppy.  Her first meal was a pickle that dropped from my sandwich.  The poor thing was so hungry she literally wolfed it down.  I took her to a local vet & he said she was only 3-4  weeks old & too young to be without her mother.  Great!  Now what was I going to do?  Well I took her home, gave her a meal & settled her in for the night.  Not a peep out of her.  The next day I found her a home with a cashier from Ralph's Grocery Store.  I was SO glad I no longer had a puppy.

Or so I thought...For 2 days I thought about that puppy.  Worried about her really.  Finally I couldn't stand it & I stopped by Ralph's to ask how she was doing.  The gal said she had to get rid of her because she cried all night & the landlord was mad.  I was so relieved, & yes, even happy.  I picked up Pitiful Pearl & brought her home.  She was the best puppy.  Never cried at night, no accidents in the house.  I think she knew what it would take to stay with me.  She became the love of my life.  Pearl went everywhere with me.  She even went to work with me.  She was my riding companion & went to endurance rides with me.  She was never far from my side.  I took her to a puppy obedience class & she won the off-leash competition.  The trainer assured me that she was a typical GWP & none of her Dobie showed through, other than her color.  I have some great memories & stories of Pearl.  Like the time she was staying the day in a tent while a friend & I rode a 50 mile endurance ride.  It wouldn't have been a problem except a storm came in.  The wind was howling, it was raining & hailing.  Other friends finished before we did & rescued Pearl as the tent was trying to blow away.  But when she ran under the truck, my poor friend was afraid she was going to have to tell me she'd lost my dog.  LOL  Or the time a friend & I finally discovered why my friend always had poison oak on just her right arm.  It seems Pearl was going through poison oak to play in the irrigation ditch by my house.  My friend is highly allergic to poison oak & as we would trailer out to ride, Pearl sat between us, leaning against my friend's right arm.  LOL  Pearl was with me for 14 1/2 years.  She taught me to love a dog.  Pearl was my light & I will always miss my Forever Friend.

1991 was the year I would bring home my 2nd dog.  My horse shoer had bred his Rottweiler & offered to give me a puppy.  I had intended to get a filly from him, but ended up with a puppy.  When the litter was 15 days old, I picked out the biggest, red (yes, a red Rottweiler) female.  She looked so much like a little bear that I went on the hunt for a bear name.  I ended up calling her Chinook, after one of the bear cubs in Santa And The Three Bears.  I brought Chinook home at 4 weeks because her mother stopped feeding.  Her very first weekend was spent at an endurance ride with Pearl & me. Oh was Chinook a challenge.  By 5 weeks of age, she was growling & snapping & I was worried I'd have to put her down for being aggressive.  As luck, or not luck, would have it, I suffered a severe eye injury about that time so I couldn't go to work.  A friend loaned me a book How To Be Your Dog's Best Friend.  It's written by some Monks in New York.  I did what they did with their puppies & by the end of a week, Chinook & I had a breakthrough.  She because a wonderful, loyal companion.  I eventually stopped taking Pearl & Chinook to endurance rides because by the time Chinook was 2 years old, she was too aggressive to be out among all the people & horses.  I would take both girls with me when I traveled to visit my folks 500 miles away.  Every morning my dad would walk his dog in the park & I'd take Pearl & Chinook.  It was fun times.  Years later my dad would still laugh about the time Chinook wouldn't let him in his own house.  She had him cornered in the garage & he was beating on the wall to get my or my mom's attention.  We just thought he was hammering something.  LOL  I did finally rescue him.  In 2002, Chinook was diagnosed with bone cancer in a leg.  The prognosis was for a couple weeks to a month.  For eight months I loved her every day because I knew we were on borrowed time.  She was such a wonderful dog & I still cherish the 12 years we had together.  She loved all things baby & would guard the foals.  She'd even let the lambs try to nurse on her.  She was a gentle soul with the little ones, but a fierce protector when she felt the need.  She did teach me that the Rottweiler really isn't the breed for me.  While I loved her dearly & would do it all again with her, the breed itself is just too stubborn & bullheaded for me.  My sweet Chinook rests next to Pearl.

January 15, 2000, just 15 days after losing my Sweet Pearl, I brought Jade home.  Jade was a 3 1/2 year old, Shepherd cross.  She came from a rescue, turned in by her military family because they could no longer keep her.  I was looking for a dog to be a friend & companion to Chinook, who was moping after the loss of Pearl.  I wanted a young, large breed, female.  Jade was older than I wanted but, from the instant we met, she immediately "took" to me.  The rescue owner cautioned me that she'd try to run if she got loose.  Well she did run as I let her out of the kennel.  She ran straight to my truck &amp waited for me to open the door.  Jade had found me.  I called the military family (their # was on Jade's tags) to let them know that Jade was going to be a ranch dog with acres to roam & that she'd always have a home with me.  Such a wonderful, loyal, faithful, dog.  She & Chinook didn't always get along, but a bond grew between them.  They had each others backs & were a great guard dog pair.  Jade was the dog that my mom liked best.  She would have stolen her if she'd been short haired.  A dog who had never been around cats, she took to my 18 year old Eli like he was her baby.  She'd wash that old cat's face & he'd lay between her legs.  She was a cat killer to any stray, but Eli was hers.  Jade became known as Ma's Dog.  My dad & I joked that no matter what naughty deed was done, Jade did it.  LOL  My mom defended her unquestioningly.  Honestly, Jade NEVER did a naughty thing.  At just over 15 years, Jade's old body said it was time.  My wonderful, wonderful Jade lays at Chinook's feet.

In April 2000, as I was looking at the bulletin board of a local feed store, I came across a month old ad for two free GWP puppies.  I was so excited but knew they'd already be gone.  I rushed home & called.  Only one puppy was left, & it was a 4 month old female.  I'm sure I was speeding as I drove to get her.  I was instantly in love.  Maddison, aka Maddi, was the cutest puppy ever.  I scooped her up & she rode home with her head on my shoulder, just like Pearl had done for all those years.  Her mannerisms were Pearl, & she captured my heart before we ever got home.  She was actually born just days before I lost Pearl.  Could there be a connection?  Jade & Chinook were both too old to play with a growing puppy so Maddi was bored.  One time a friend called to tell me that he'd gotten a call from his friend, telling him that my brown dog was across the street in a field.  My friend hurried over, just in time to see Maddi dragging a dear carcass across the street & under my neighbor's tree.  My folks bought me a kennel to keep Maddi safe while I was at work.  In 2001, my folks bought the property next to me & Maddi began to spend her days with my dad.  I'd had my property fenced with higher fence so she no longer spent time in the kennel.  She was the funniest dog.  She'd sit in the horses' water trough & watch the workman come & go as my folks' garage was put in.  In 2003, Maddi became sick.  That first day she jumped the 6' fence into my folks' yard before they got up in the morning (something she'd never done before).  She was laying on the porch, under their bedroom window.  Maddi was really sick.  She had a mass in her abdomen that we initially thought was a foreign object.  Unfortunately surgery revealed a rare, fast growing tumor.  A few days later I had to let my heart dog go.  She was only 3 1/2.  To this day I can still hear my voice calling her.  Maddi, Maddi, Maddi.  And even after all these years, writing this reduces me to tears.  I will always love my Maddi.  She lies between Chinook & my cat Eli.

Maddi's death was devastating & I never thought I'd get over her.  The next morning I drove across town to sit in the driveway of where I had gotten her.  The yard was different & a pitbull was tied to a tree.  As I sat in my truck sobbing, a man walked out to ask what I was doing.  Between sobs I explained to the guy, who turned out to be the brother of the guy I got Maddi from, what had happened.  I asked if his brother still had GWPs & he pointed to a kennel across the drive.  There was Maddi's mother with a litter of 2 week old puppies.  Full siblings to Maddi.  The poor guy had a sobbing woman in his drive & I'm sure he was worried I wouldn't leave.  He took me to the kennel & told me take my pick of the puppies.  He'd tell his brother Lee that he'd given me a puppy.  I knew what I wanted.  I wanted the little runt who was a liver just like Maddi.  I drove home crying both sad & happy tears.  My mom convinced me that I should get 2 puppies & that she'd buy me the second.  So I called & told Lee that I wanted another female puppy.  Three weeks later I went to get my puppies.

Jenni & Keeli

Jenni & Me

When I arrived to get my puppies, Lee had all the females sorted from the males.  I had my Keeli (Celtic for Beautiful) in my arms, looking at the others.  Out of the pack a chubby little liver & white female crawled onto my foot.  Jenni (Celtic for White Wave because she had a white streak on her head) had chosen me.  Once again I was in love, head over heals in love with my GWP puppies.  My mom could never remember Keeli's name so called them Jenni & The Other One, T.O. for short.  In Sept of 2003, my mom went into a nursing home.  I can still see the tiny Jenni jumping on the back of the wheelchair on the day my mom left her home for the last time.  A year later I was telling my mom how Keeli had killed a baby squirrel & slapped my dad in the face, proud of her catch.  My dad had been leaning over when Keeli surprised him with her prize.  That was my mom's last smile as she passed the next day.  Jenni & Keeli were the best puppies ever.  When tiny, they spent the days in the kennel while I was at work.  My dad would come to my place to feed them lunch.  Sometimes he'd take them up to his house & he'd clothespin a ribbon on the kennel gate so I'd know he had them.  That faded ribbon is still clothespinned to the kennel all these years later. Jenni gave my dad quite the scare when she crawled under the jasmine & fell asleep.  He thought he was going to have to tell me he'd lost my puppy.  What great ranch dogs.  Riding on the quads with me, zooming around the pastures.  When I was at work they'd both spend the day helping my dad around his place, playing with his dog Zoey.  Jenni & Keeli lit up my life.  I'd watched Keeli run so fast that she'd run over the top of a squirrel.  We called her our hummingbird on speed.  LOL  GWPs are water dogs.  Even when it wasn't all that hot, they'd be in the water troughs.  I even bought them a short one as their pool.  Jenni was momma's baby, my velcro dog.  She was never out of sight & preferred to be everywhere with me.  Such a sensitive girl who was easily traumatized.  She really preferred no one to visit, & I'm sure she'd have been happier as an only child.  Keeli was the carefree of the two.  Independent & always happy.  Even today, little deaf Keeli is happy & busy.  A week or so before their 12th birthday, Jenni was lame.  X-rays & a bone biopsy revealed osteosarcoma.  I was devastated because I knew our time together was going to be shortened.  I knew all I could do was love Jenni everyday while I could.  I honestly thought I'd have a few months, not just a few weeks.  On Mon Jun 22 ,2015, Jenni met me at the gate when I got home.  She was happy & bouncy, wanting her biscuit.  As she bounced up the back steps, she tripped & broke her leg.  OMG  I couldn't believe it as I heard her cry.  I called the vet in tears, knowing our time was up.  All I could do was give her pain meds & sedation while we waited.  I cried for hours.  I held my beloved Jenni while she went to sleep.  My heart breaking.  Keeli is as lost without Jenni as I.  Jenni had been her ears.  No one meets me at the gate when I get home because Keeli can't hear me drive up.  It was Jenni who would jump up & down, vibrating the ground or deck to wake Keeli.  Every night at feeding time, it was Jenni who would run up to Keeli & then to the ranger so Keeli would know it was time for a ride.  

Keeli

Now I have to get Keeli's attention & motion her to come with me.  We are both lost & heart broken. I can't breathe & feel like my heart will never stop breaking.  I don't know how to go on without my beloved Jenni.  My Trauma Queen.  Twelve years isn't enough time. Jenni lies next to Jade & at the feet of her older sister Maddi.  Keeli & I miss you Jenni, & we will always love you.  
  










I don't know why GWPs are MY breed.  I just know that they fill my heart to over flowing.  I might never have another because I don't think my heart can take the pain.  But because of them, my heart has been opened to all dogs & I've had some wonderful ones in my life.  I still have my dad's dog, Zoey, a wonderful & loving pitty.  And my San, another rescue dog who has brought me love & happiness.  But honestly, it's my GWPs who have defined the dog person I have become.  For 30 years, they have filled my heart.  It's hard to imagine my life without one.  I don't know how long I'll have my Keeli, but I'll treasure her every day & hope for a few more years with my beloved GWP.


Going back through my FaceBook posts, this is from April 22, 2015, just days before Jenni was diagnosed with osteosarcoma.  It just seems fitting to copy this here as it is just a continuation of my love of GWPs.  Today, looking back 8 weeks, it's almost prophetic that my heartstrings were tugged for Jenni's older sibling, all the while not knowing that I would soon be losing my sweet Jenni.

Sometimes it's a very small world. Even more so if you have German Wirehaired Pointers, or so it's been for me. Fifteen years ago I brought home a 5 month old GWP puppy who would be the light of my life for 3 years. When I lost Maddi, this hysterically sobbing woman ended up in the driveway of her breeder. In a kennel across the driveway was her mother with a litter of 2 week old full siblings. Two of those wonderful puppies came home with me a few weeks later. For the last 12 years, Jenni & Keeli have been my heart dogs. Two years ago I met someone who had a male GWP. As we talked, we realized our dogs were littermates.  At that time I learned that the breeder of my beloved GWPs had passed away 2 years earlier.  Today, as I was getting Jenni out of the truck to go in to see the vet, a guy in a truck next to me asked about her. As we talked he told me about his 15 year GWP female who was his heart dog. We talked about future puppies & wondered where we'd get them. Then we talked about where we got our puppies all those years ago. If you've guessed right, you'll have guessed that his old girl was a littermate to my Maddi, therefore a full sister to Jenni & Keeli. My heartstrings were tugged pretty hard today. Thinking of Maddi, feeling sad for the guy who knew he was close to losing his girl, & worrying about Jenni's diagnosis. But as hard as some of those emotions were on the drive home, I know I've been so very fortunate to have found my GWP puppies, & to have fleetingly entered into the lives of their littermates' lives. A connection shared. heart emoticon heart emoticon heart emoticon my GWPs