Spirit

Spritey,

You were the smallest, most annoying pain in the butt this family had ever seen.

While your sheltie predecessor Ginger was textbook of the breed, you were absolutely not. You were small, for one thing. Ginger had ten pounds on you. You were also mouthy, pushy, rude, standoffish, vain, and completely greedy. Your antics made me laugh more in a week than most dogs would manage in a month.

I'll miss your drivebys, where you ran yourself along the edge of the couch hoping for a head scratch/butt rub. You always got tangled in the blankets. I'll miss you banging into our legs when we didn't move fast enough, or your pulling the water bowl across the floor with your foot in anger when we ignored your need for a drink.

You loved to eat. You ate everything in sight-egg shells, lettuce, popcorn, Listerine Pocket Packs (the look on your face when you realized this wasn't food sent your three human sisters into peals of laughter.)

You had no idea how to hunt. Hunting required stealth. You'd see movement and go ballistic. You'd see bronze bulls and go into maximum defense mode. We had to cover your eyes at the 4th of July parade or risk you trying to take on a horse 100 times your size.

You didn't know the meaning of fear. You took on bunnies, deer, cows, horses...didn't matter. You'd take 'em all on and beat them up. I called you the Cowardly Lion because you were all shout and puff but no real backup. If you'd ever faced a real bull head-on you'd have gone running for help.

Quiet? You didn't know the meaning of the word. If you weren't snoring in your sleep like a grizzly bear, you were blowing doors open at 7 in the morning with your head and demanding attention. You were trilling. You were clicking your little feet through the house and coming to find me. You were landing like your body weighed a ton of bricks in the kennel when you didn't get your way. You were throwing a temper tantrum when you got locked in the kennel during meal time.

You demanded attention. You required it. You hated hugs, hated affection or being held or cuddled, but attention was something else. You loved people, and people loved you. They'd smile at you, perched on someone's lap in the car. They'd go out of their way to pet your little head. They'd comment on how beautiful you were, how pretty that little dog was. You never lived with little kids and yet you were a magnet for them, and they always exclaimed how soft the cute puppy was.

You loved scootching up against my feet at Christmas, pushing me back and back and back, until you had 3/4 of the couch claimed and I was smushed in the corner. Remember when you kicked me in the back all the way from Milwaukee to Rhinelander because you thought you needed more space to sleep in?

You hated us being more than ten feet away from you. If I went around the side of the car, you'd cry. If we were doing laundry outside, you'd howl till we noticed you. You would stand under the porch and banshee away until we asked you to shut up.

You were beautiful, my girl, and you knew it. From long silky fur to your golden-tufted ears (first thing I noticed about you,) to your little raccoon face and your golden eyebrows, you were the most gorgeous dog I've ever seen. Not that you liked having that beauty maintained. Your appearance as a floaty, lovely thing took work, and Mum made sure you always looked your best.

It didn't help you when you lost to that ferret, but still. You never got gray. You were practically 14 and still looked half that age. You were bouncy until your very last week, outrunning me when I tried to escape you being in the lead and biting my ankles to control your "sheeple."

You were hilarious. From the two ceramic bowls you backfooted off the porch within a month, to the metal ones you threw across the room every night, to the time you got stuck in the grate in front of the door by your collar, to getting stuck on the chair rung in the kitchen, you needed constant help in getting out of scrapes. Feet stuck through chain links. Stuck around the porch with your outside rope five times a day, and on your leash, wound around my legs so tight I almost fell on my butt.

You covered pancake batter that fell on the ground with dirt pushed by your nose. You shoved bowls until they tipped their contents everywhere. You landed on Whisper's stomach and caused everyone in the house to chastise you for it. Then there was the time you went pushing under Whisper's feet in your desperation to get to a biscuit and suddenly popped up next to me.

You trampled Grandpa Koshak's paper in your need for attention-ran through it, ran under it, ran over it. He finally gave in and cuddled you (you always did have him suckered, right from the very beginning.)

You loved car rides and walks. You went crazy if you saw me put on my socks. You adored snow. How many times did I have to wipe your face off when you came inside the house?

You were our little star. We told people you were a menace, but I realized as I typed this that I missed all your little ways and habits, your tiny fairy feet clicking through the house, your familiar ebony body in one of the bedrooms.

You had about fifty nicknames, most of them due to me. No one seems to be able to remember how you got the name of Poo (possibly Pooh?) but I called you some of these (forgive me if I can't remember them all...)

Strawberry Shortcake
Napoleonic Powermonger
Opportunistic Bitch
Lion Puppy
Tiny Dancer (the name of one of your siblings, but it fit you, too)
Un Peu (French for "a little.")
Poozie
Poozietron
Pain in the mikta (basically pain in the ass in Jaffa)
Sprite
Spritey
Spritey-Poo
Sprit
Spoo (Sprite and Poo together)
Spirit Marie (mostly in exasperation when you got tangled)
Snowbup
Big Girl (mostly had to do with your ego)
The Birthday Present that Really Bites (you were Mum's 40th birthday present, but most of the time, I was the one you bit. Remember when you ripped the leg of my jeans because you were hanging onto the back?)


It is too quiet here without you. It really is. I had no idea how much noise you actually made until you weren't here making it.

I know your obit isn't as good as Whisper's, but I couldn't leave out the important things you had done in your life; the little things. You were so much and it's hard to contain you down to words.

You drove us crazy and scared us half to death. The night you disappeared as a baby and turned up down the road, the time Whisper unintentionally caught her leash around you and nearly choked you to death, the two major times you were ill, the time you chased that damn deer, the Pit game last summer when you were terrified of our shouting...you reminded me that life is for the seizing, no matter how long it is.

When I kissed your nose for the last time yesterday, I swore I'd remember you for the rest of my life. How could I forget such a force of nature, a person (or shuman, if you want to get technical about it) who lived up to her name so distinctly that no other could ever carry it?

I hope you and Whisper are up there someplace, shooting the breeze and sharing a bowl of never-ending biscuits, which you take more than your share of and Whisper lets you. I hope Pookie is there, too, cuddled up next to you and undestroyed by Whisper's teeth.

Rest in peace, my sweet girl, our Spirit (Marie) (Hurricane) of the Great Northwoods.

We will love and miss you always.

Spirit of the Great Northwoods
4.2.99-3.11.13