Friday, October 03, 2008

Maggie's Long Walks

We used to have an Airedale Terrier named Maggie. She passed away a while back, but I'll never forget her long forays into the wild unknown. On a regular basis, we would let her out to "do her business" and something would take over. Rather than wandering around the yard, picking a spot and doing the usual circle routine, she would tear out of the yard like a bullet out of a gun and go crashing into the woods. No amount of yelling, or shaking a box of biscuits would help, she was gone. She was on a journey. We're not sure what happened on those journeys, but she would inevitably show up a few days later looking like some prodigal puppy, or she would crawl into someone's yard and wait for them to read her collar and give us a call. That was Maggie.

So, imagine my surprise when I saw this video on CNN today. It appears as though we aren't the only ones who had an Airedale with a penchant for adventure.



Till next time!

4 comments:

Tim and Deane said...

The dog in the video even looks like Maggie Wraggletaggle!! Actually made me feel a little weepy - for her AND for her caughter/cohort, Shadow McGuillicutty.

But, of course, that dog had a fresh hair cut and grooming.

Tim, you are so right about the stink and yuck when they came home from their travels. I think most of us in the family are still traumatized by a time or two when we had to put one of those dogs in the car to get them home. UGH! Afterwards we would have to take Maggie to the vet to get ointment for her bloody pads - and shampoo or spray to treat skin fungus or bacterial infections.

One time Maggie came back with a veneral infection! She was very sick. The vet said she had probably been raped by a wild dog -and that "dog rape" is not uncommon.

Maggie and Shadow were good friends, and I miss them, but even so, I still would not let either sleep on my bed.

Jim Elek said...

Shadow came back so messed up from one of those trips, she decided never to follow Maggie again and spent the rest of her days taking abrupt left turns. I'm just kidding, that dog was great. Probably the dumbest dog I ever met, but cute and kind. Sort of like Jer's friend Jorge.

Tim and Deane said...

Jorge was neither cute nor kind. I believe he was a drug dealer.

Joshua said...

I don't know, he was always really nice to me. And when you're a kid, riding the bus and no one on the bus thinks you're cool enough to talk to, it means a lot that Jorge would sit back there and joke around with me. I have nothing but good memories of him, whatever he did in his spare time. In my mind, that makes him cute and kind. The drug dealer accusation came across as pretty mean spirited. I'm sure you didn't mean it that way.