Ginger (my shadow)

 Ginger, (ginny, gingin, wiggins, rockdog, bigdog,) were a few nicknames you had in 16 years

 Ginny, your flame burned bright, your intestinal fortitude strength and will were hard to believe and to describe. In your prime I truly believed there was nothing you couldn’t do.

 Ginny we got you from the pound, they had found you wandering the streets and no one came looking for their lost doggie. You looked so pitiful and unhappy in that small cage; you actually had us believing you were an old dog that someone had for some reason left to fend for itself.

 So after some discussion we decided to give an old dog a few more good years and took you home. The SPCA at that time had no funding and animals had a 3 week grace period. Several days after getting you we took you to the vet to make sure everything was ok, everything was fine with you except that the vet thought you might only be around 12-14 weeks old. You were quite large for a 3 month old dog so I started calling you Bigdog. Turns out you were more like 6 months old an almost full grown, but the nickname “Big dog” stuck.

 You were quite the handful in the beginning too Ginny. You were likely abused by your previous owners, you were very skitterish and defensive or nervous, and god forbid we opened the front door when you were close by. For the first couple of months I don’t know how many times we chased you around the neighbourhood and through back yards.

The backyard fence couldn’t hold you either, in seconds there was a hole dug and you were gone! You did take to babe right away and that helped you some I guess. Within a few months though you started to come around and by the end of a years time you and I were attached, I had a second shadow.

 We had a nice sized backyard that was well treed and you loved it because we had lots of squirrels. I don’t think you ever got one, but you would spend hours each day chasing them.

 Your athleticism amazed me, I couldn’t throw a ball or a Frisbee far enough that you couldn’t run after it and catch it in the air. Any game was fine with you, tug of war, frisbee, monkey in the middle, and your favorite of course was diving for rocks, or finding rocks I had thrown into a hay field. There could be ice on the water and you would dive for rocks until I wouldn’t let you do it anymore.

 We also had a trailer in a park that backed on to a field of several hundred acres of farm land. That truly was your field of dreams wasn’t Ginny. We would spend hours there, you babe and I, to the field, then the lake, then the field was the routine and you never tired of it.

Grooming you was always interesting. Having been abused, things like brushing your tail or clipping nails was to say the least interesting. One time I had come across an article that described how groomers would suspend the problem dog with a sheet under the belly and then tied to something above, leaving the dog suspended in mid air with the feet dangling allowing for easy nail clipping. I thought, AAHHHAA, that’s how we’ll do it. We had an exposed beam in our living room and my thought was to lift you with the sheet around your belly and then tie the sheet around the beam with you about a foot off the floor. Well you were quite patient…for you Ginny and allowed me several attempts at this. After around the 3^rd attempt which amounted to me trying to support your 40 lbs or so and tie a knot at the same time while standing on a chair, and then me falling and you landing on the floor, you thought that’s enough of this. There were no more nail cutting episodes allowed after that huh Ginny.

You loved people…as long as they didn’t try to trim you nails, but were very standoffish to other dogs. I should have got a picture of the look on your face when I pulled the car up to the house that was to be our new life and there were 4 doggies waiting there for us. Babe jumped out and met everyone, but you said ok that was a nice 5 hour drive now let’s do it again and go back where we came from. Getting you out of the car was a chore that day. It took a little time but you fit in well, you got very close to Stella, and actually enjoyed running with the pack on our walks.

Ginny you were a “go dog”, any time any where it didn’t matter, long drives, trips to the corner store, running with me it didn’t matter. You did hate being on a leash especially in the beginning and walking you was a chore, good exercise though for both of us as you would pull me along with you. I’m sure it was quite a site to see me jogging around the neighbour hood with two doggies on a leash. I’m sure my neighbours had more than several laughs when they would see us get tangled ending with me crashing to the ground too.

Ginny, I never had to look for you, you always by my side or waiting for me looking out the front window if you were inside, or sitting on the drive way waiting for your dad to come home. Truly you were my second shadow, I miss my shadow.

Your buried alongside Babe, Stella, and Peggy now GinGin, no more arthritis, you can hear, and the best part Ginny,  there are squirrels every where you look.

Bye Bigdoggie, I’ll never forget you.