In Memory of Codie

Yesterday I had Codie put to sleep. For those of you who did not have the privilege of knowing her, Codie was our chocolate lab. She was 15, and we had had her since she was 5 months old. She was the family dog, but most of all, she was Kirk’s dog. They loved each other with a passion that often made me think it was a good thing I met him first because I don’t know how she (and maybe even he!) ever would have made room for me if she had come before me. He and I both had many pets during our lives, but there was no doubt that Codie was the best of them all. For our family, she was so much more than a pet – she was as much a member of our family as any of the people were, and we loved her more than you can imagine. So today’s entry is my tribute to another lost member of our family.

I didn’t want her. It was 1995, and we already had a beagle, a cat, and two kids in a house that was bursting at the seams. The beagle was charming but completely untrainable, and as much as we loved him, he was not the easiest dog to own. We had no capacity or time for another pet, but Kirk dreamed of a hunting dog. When a woman he worked with mentioned she had a lab puppy that she had bought but now had to get rid of, he decided this could be the one. She offered the puppy to Kirk for $350 – a bargain since the dog was pure bred, from good hunting stock; she had paid $500 for her only two months earlier. Her name was Serene. And so the campaign began. That night he came home with a picture of the puppy. I said no. He hung the picture on a cabinet that was a beeline from our font door – it was our family communication area where we would leave notes for each other as we came and went. At first it was just the picture. Then he enlisted the aid of the kids and they started writing things like “Aren’t I cute?” on post-it notes and putting them next to her picture (yes – she was awfully cute). More pictures appeared, each one more appealing than the last. This went on for weeks, but I remained steadfast. Her owner kept dropping the price – desperate to find a home for the dog or face eviction. Finally, he came home one night to say the price was down to $50. I still said no. The next morning, I was leaving on a business trip for a week. As he drove me to the airport, he again tried to convince me. I knew that he knew that it was not the right decision, so instead of saying no again, I put it back on him. I told him that I was leaving it up to him, but that we both knew what the right thing was, and that I trusted him to make a good decision. I was convinced he would tell her he could not take the puppy.

One week later he and the kids picked me up at the airport. We went out to dinner, and then headed home. As I walked in the front door, I heard a noise – sort of a rattling or banging. I asked what it was and he said I don’t know. Then I heard the telltale whine of a puppy in her crate – her tail banging against the sides as she wiggled with excitement that her people were home. I was truly stunned, and not at all happy. The kids excitedly informed me that her name was now Dakota – Codie for short (we soon came to wonder what could possibly have possessed anyone to name such an active, rambunctious, tomboy of a dog “Serene”). Kirk promised me he would take her to obedience school and get her really well trained. I remained upset.

In a few days however, my opinion of owning her changed. One thing that was evident from the start was that she loved our beagle, Sherlock. She followed him everywhere, so closely that if he stopped short she literally ran into him. One day they were in the back yard and he got out of the fence somehow. This was one of the most difficult things about him – he was not very bright about most things, but he could escape any sort of confinement – leashes, leads, fences, anything. He really should have been named Houdini. We had to look for him at least once a week, and more than once he ended up in the pound. Usually when he got out we would get in the car and cruise the neighborhood, calling him out the window. If he heard us he would come running to get a ride in the car. The problem was that he roamed far and wide, and figuring out where he had gone was a major challenge, so we could spend hours calling him in vain. The first day he went missing after we got Codie, I prepared to get the car and go on the hunt. Kirk said we should see if Codie could find him. I thought that was ridiculous – how was this little puppy going to find him? But he wanted to try so we took her outside and told her “Go find Sherlock.” She put her nose to the ground and started sniffing, and pretty soon she was on the move. We followed her between houses and through yards, her nose down the whole way, and pretty soon lo and behold, there was Sherlock rooting around in someone’s garden. He was most disappointed not to get a car ride home. Kirk was thrilled – Codie clearly had the makings of a great hunting dog. I was just thrilled she found the damn beagle. From that day on I decided she was worth her keep and more. That was the day she was christened the Blue Light Special – the best bargain we ever got.

He kept his promise and took her to school. She learned fast – she was smart, and even more importantly, she lived to please him, so she had a powerful desire to obey. He would come home and teach the rest of us the commands they learned, and she quickly grew into one of the most well trained, obedient dogs I have ever met.

She did indeed become an excellent hunting dog, and they spent many happy days hunting pheasants, chuckers, and their favorite, ducks. She loved the water, and would happily leap into the iciest river or lake to bring back a duck. For those who have never seen a dog in action, you should know that theirs is not an easy task, and requires strong communication between the dog and its master. Imagine you are swimming in a lake, and need to find something dark on the surface of dark water. The water is in constant motion, and the item is very far away – impossible to see from the distance and level you are at. So instead you watch your master, who stands in the boat or on shore, and using a combination of hand signals and simple verbal directions (like “Back” if you need to swim further out), he tells you what to do and you do it. You follow his instructions, looking back at him every so often and adjusting course if need be. You swim blindly, trusting that if he points to the left and calls “Back” you can swim there and find the prize. And sure enough, much to your excitement, it works! And when you swim all the way back and crawl up into that boat with the bird, he is happy with you! She lived for it.

Codie often hunted with Kirk and his friends or his dad, and she retrieved for them all. At night she would be so sore she could barely move, but the next morning she’d be raring to go. Once, he sent her after a duck that turned out to be alive, and it flew off low over the water. He called her back, but for once she refused to obey him, so determined to get the duck she watched it in the air and just kept swimming toward it, trying to catch up. He had to go after her in the boat, and he later told me that before he got to her she got so far and was so tired that he thought she was in danger of drowning. Her dad had sent her after a duck and dammit, she was bound and determined she was going to bring that duck back no matter what it took.

He always said they had a deal – he promised to always hit the birds if she promised to always find them and bring them back. Normally this was not a difficult promise to keep for either of them. He was a good shot and rarely missed, and I don’t think she ever failed to find and retrieve a bird. I remember one day, though, that he came home and said he had let her down. He was hunting with his dad, and they were a ways apart on the shore. As I said before, Codie would retrieve for anyone Kirk hunted with, but she always sat next to Kirk while she waited to be told to go get the bird. If it was someone else’s, she would retrieve it, bring it to whoever shot it, and then come back and sit with Kirk to wait for the next one. On this particular day, Kirk was not shooting well, and missed quite a few birds. Each time, she would look at him, wondering what was going on, first with disappointment, and as he told it, eventually with something more like dismay and even disgust. During all this, his dad successfully shot several times, and she retrieved everything he brought down, returning to Kirk each time. Finally, Kirk shot and missed again. She looked at him, stood up, walked down the shore, and sat down next to his dad, where she remained the rest of the day. It was the only time she ever gave up on her dad.

I remember the first deer hunting season that happened after she had learned to hunt birds. He was worried about her seeing him leave on opening day. It was always his habit to pile all his clothing, gear, and guns on the floor just inside the door, and when he had everything set he would carry it out to the car. Bird season is before deer season, so by now she knew this routine well and knew fun things happen when Daddy starts making the pile inside the door. This would be the first time she would watch this now-familiar activity and not get to go with him. Sure enough, as he gathered all the clothing and gear, she got very excited, and followed him closely as he prepared to leave. When it was time to go, he squeezed out the door, closing it in her face and leaving her behind. She was crushed. So the next day, instead of following him around as he prepared to leave, she stayed in one place, just inside the door, leaning against it. She had clearly decided he couldn’t leave her behind if she blocked the door. So this day, he snuck out the other door. The third morning, she had a new strategy. This time, as he made the pile, she laid down across his gun. She knew that was the one item he was not leaving without. He had to drag it out from underneath her, and once again she was disappointed.

Hunting can be tough on a dog, and over the years she had her share of cut paws, sprains and strains. The worst she was ever hurt was during pheasant hunting, which of course is done in fields. She started limping while hunting that day, but it initially didn’t seem too bad, and she clearly wanted to continue. Eventually, though, the limp got pretty bad, so even though she still wanted to hunt, Kirk called it a day. He inspected her paw several times and could not find anything. Over the next few days, the paw was clearly in bad shape, but we still couldn’t see anything wrong. She went to the vet twice, but he couldn’t find anything either, even on an x-ray. Her paw became badly infected and it wouldn’t respond to antibiotics. Finally the vet felt he had to operate so he could go in and see what was happening. To our shock, he found that she had a several inch long stick in her paw. It was just about the exact size and shape of one of those little pencils you keep score in golf with. It had pierced her skin in between two toes, and been driven lengthwise straight up into her foot parallel to her bones, and then the entry point had closed back over so you couldn’t see it. She had that chunk of wood in her foot for about two weeks before the surgery, but I think what really bothered her was to watch Kirk leave to go hunting without her until she healed.

Codie loved Kirk more than anything. She knew him as Daddy, and when daddy was home she was always nearby. Sometimes she would lie at his feet and just stare at him with a mooning look on her face – like he was a movie star or something and she was an infatuated fan. But next to Kirk, Codie LOVED to eat. Because of her love of food, she would eat anything from your hand – so fast she inhaled it. Whenever she needed pills we would just hold them out and she would gobble them up without flinching. I’m convinced she would eat a rock if you held it in the palm of your hand for her. Just a few months ago, I didn’t realize she was in the pantry and I closed the door and locked her in there for over four hours. She never made a peep – I thought she was outside the whole time. She just sat there in the pitch dark and quietly stuffed herself with the dog food kept in there. By the time I found her her stomach was bulging as if there was a bowling ball in there.

Food was really the only area of her life where she could be sneaky and disobedient. She was obsessed with butter, and loved to steal butter wrappers form the garbage. She also loved bread, and would eat a whole loaf in a flash if she could get it. Once, she stole a whole raw turkey. Fortunately it was partially frozen still so she couldn’t eat enough to make her sick. One year on Thanksgiving, we figured out that she had eaten the little bag of desiccant that was in a bag of beef jerky. She was terribly sick and in horrible pain and had to be taken to an emergency vet visit in the middle of the Cowboys game – not good timing when Kirk is your dad.

Although she would ignore the rules when it came to food, she knew she was wrong, and the most amazing thing was that she would actually punish herself. She did not often require discipline, and we never ever hit her the way many people do with dogs. Instead, her punishment for any infraction was always that she had to sit in the corner, facing the wall. She hated to go in the corner, and would wear a terribly sad face until we let her come out. But whenever she stole food, she would eat it in the punishment corner. It was clear she knew what she was doing was wrong, so she figured she better go there. We would come home to find the garbage tipped over and all the food wrappers clustered in the punishment corner.

She loved holidays, because we have a big family and everyone convened at our house, where Kirk would prepare large and elaborate meals. This meant lots of crumbs, kids who would sneak her treats, and tons of food scraps in the trove of treasures that was the garbage. She eventually figured out that the youngest and the oldest of the crowd were most likely to drop food by accident, so toddlers and grandmas got special attention from her on holidays. She earned her keep by doing tricks for everyone. She would do all the normal dog stuff like shake, or stay still while you threw a treat to the other side of the room, and not go get it until we told her she could. But the hands-down crowd favorite, which she performed at more holidays and parties than I can count, was known as “Nose.” This required her to sit perfectly still and hold her nose flat and straight out in front of her. We would then place a piece of food on top of her nose – pretzel nuggets worked the best, but almost anything would do. We would say “Nose” and she would freeze, holding perfectly still, her eyes crossing as she stared at the food on the end of her muzzle. She would stay like that indefinitely, until we finally released her with the word “Okay.” Upon that command, she would flip the food in the air and catch it in her mouth before it hit the floor. This was quite the crowd pleaser, and I’m sure many of you reading this saw her do it many times. As you know, she rarely missed.

Our past two moves were tough for Codie. She was growing older, and adjusting to life in warm climates was especially tough on her, as she is a winter loving dog. When we moved to Georgia, we had an in ground pool put in, mostly for Codie. That pool was her salvation – she lived in it in the summer. She would lie down on the first step so everything but her head was immersed in water, and sleep with her head on the edge of the pool. The last time she hunted was in 2006, when Kirk took her dove hunting. He had not hunted with her in over two years, because it is hard to find good bird hunting spots in Georgia. When he got the chance to go, he debated whether she would be able to handle it, as she was definitely aging. But it was an easy hunt, on flat terrain, and the temperatures were pretty moderate – in the 70s. He knew she would love to go, and thought it might be their last chance to hunt before she had to give it up for good, so he decided to take her. To make a long story short, they had only been out there a few minutes when she collapsed. He thought she was having a heart attack. He ran for the truck and drove it to where she was. He was in the middle of nowhere and didn’t know where to get help, and she was clearly in trouble. He called me, and I called the vet and told him what was happening. The vet said it sounded like heat stroke, and that Kirk had 20 minutes from the time of onset to get her immersed in water or she would have irreversible brain damage. I called him back and told him – by now probably 10 of the 20 minutes had passed. There were no bodies of water anywhere near him. Another hunter told him there was an abandoned farmhouse down the road, and he drove there, praying there would be water, and fortunately, there was not only running water, but someone had left a hose attached to the faucet. That hose saved her life – without it he could not have gotten enough water on her body to cool her down adequately. He felt horrible about it, and never forgave himself for putting her at risk. After that, she became even more susceptible to heat, and had to have air-conditioning available at all times in the summer.

For the past few years, we continually wondered how much longer she would live. She had arthritis, and was getting pretty sore, but continued to soldier on. Before every visit they made, the kids would ask if we thought Codie would make it until they came, and every time they left, they said goodbye like it was the last time. Yet she always seemed to make it to the next one. Kirk could not talk about her eventually dying – it was heartbreaking for him. Finally, about two weeks before he died, he told me something that I am now very grateful to know. He said that he had decided that when she died, he wanted her cremated, and he planned to keep her ashes to be buried with him when he died someday. We had never before done this with a pet, so if he had not said anything I would never have known he wanted it. I never dreamed he would be the first to go.

As you would guess, she has not been the same since he died. The first few weeks she just seemed to be waiting patiently for him to come home. When he didn’t, she started staying in the laundry room all the time, and wouldn’t come out. After a month or so of that, she finally emerged and rejoined the family, but she just seemed quieter and didn’t seem to have joy anymore. Lately, her health has been declining more and more, and finally after much soul searching and advice/consultation from the kids, Jenny, Nancy, etc., and many many tears, I made the decision that it was time to give her back to him. Matt told me he imagines Kirk in heaven and that there is some sort of receptionist at the front gate, and that when Kirk got there, he told the person he was expecting his dog Codie soon, and that they had to let him know as soon as she got there. Since then though, he worries they will forget to tell him, so he bugs the person constantly – “are you sure she hasn’t come yet?” That would be typical.

When we chose the cemetery for him, I asked if we could bury her ashes above him when she died. I was told no, that we cannot disturb his grave for any reason. So instead, I plan to buy some stone planters to put on either side of his (our) tombstone. Her ashes will go in the bottom of one, with a planting on top of it. It’s the closest I can come to fulfilling his wishes.

I hope so much that they are really together now. That would be the most joyous reunion imaginable. For the past year, I have not said the word “Daddy” to her or in front of her – I was worried she would think he was there and go looking for him. As she lay on the table in the vet’s office, and they were getting ready to let her rest, I knelt down and held her head. She looked in my eyes, peacefully, not blinking, and finally I was able to say his name to her, over and over – “Go find Daddy.” And I like to think she did.