She Never Grew Into Her Ears
I think Nature intended for Ellie to be bigger. She was, after all, a purebred German shepherd, according to the DNA test which came back some years later. And she certainly looked like a German shepherd, though she was all ears at first. I had lost my previous GSD, gentle giant Shadow, and was looking for another, when my sister Nora told me she had seen German shepherd puppies at a local fair in El Segundo. I jumped at the opportunity. Went down to ES, figuring a valuable GSD puppy would be snapped up quickly. Nora and I even posed as a married couple so as to make our case stronger. It was easier than that. Turns out the adoption facility was pretty fly-by-night, and Ellie was covered in fleas. I took Ellie home to Ventura for a mere 50-dollar adoption fee..
That was one of the great days in fatherhood, for me. Ellie was so small she slept on the console between the two front seats on the drive up. I walked in with her and placed her right on Carrie’s lap. The kids had no idea I’d be coming home with a puppy. Worth it right there.
At the first visit to the vet, however, it took a turn. Dr. Marianne picked up Ellie and immediately said, “She’s got a hole in her heart.” She didn’t even have the stethoscope on Ellie; she could hear the gurgling without it. I learned that without an operation to plug that hole, Ellie would only live a couple of months. So back to LA she went, to the canine heart specialist. They inserted a plastic plug in her aorta, and assured me her body would seal it in place, and Ellie would live a full life. Which she did. She just never grew up. A Peter Pan dog, if there ever was one. Shadow had topped out at 95 pounds, Duke, my current shepherd, at 82. Ellie never weighed more than 53 pounds, sopping wet. I’m sure that heart condition stunted her growth. “I didn’t know there were miniature German shepherds,“ people would say. “She’s the only one,” I’d tell them.
And let me tell you, that miniature German shepherd was not cheap. That 50-dollar GSD puppy turned out to be worth…a lot more. Kaiser, of course, refused to pay for the operation, though Ellie was now very much a dependent in my family. Nora’s girls had taken a shine to her and started a fundraiser, “Pennies for a Puppy”, to help defray the costs.
Being on the smaller side all her life had its advantages. For one thing, she was very quick and agile, at least for a GSD. She lived for the ball, was obsessed with it (I used to call that just a good work ethic). She would chase the ball for hours on end, running back at full speed. In fact, if you didn’t do a matador pirouette-type move at the last minute, she’d slam right into you. And she could catch the ball on the fly, leaping to meet it. I have never known any dog of mine to do that. But Ellie would tell you when she had enough. You’d throw the ball and she’d fetch it, but she wouldn’t return to you; she’d lie down in the grass some distance away, with the ball, as if to say, “I’ve had enough for now. Let’s chill for a bit.”
Ellie was so obsessed with the ball that one time she dropped in front of one of our cats, fully expecting the cat to toss it for her. You gotta admire that single-mindedness.
Ellie was so motivated by the ball that she really wasn’t that food-motivated, and that made her really hard, almost impossible, to train. Despite my attempts to socialize her, and a not-insignificant amount of money we put into training, she never really got along with other dogs, would even bark at them from an enclosed vehicle. Leave it, Ellie, that dog can’t hear you.
A few years ago Ellie traded her suburban life for life as a ranch dog, when Cathy took her up north. It was perfect for her. She had her run of the place, chased turkeys and ravens, barked at the neighbor’s sheep, befriended the horses and even a family of skunks. And chased the ball every day. She followed Cathy around the property, through the vineyard, over to the pottery studio.
Cathy’s daughter Annie got married at the Ranch last summer, and Ellie stole the show. By then she was older, deliberate, never in a hurry. She plopped herself right down on the wedding runway, making the day a little bit about her. What’s a ranch wedding without a ranch dog in the wedding photos?
Ellie never developed the hip problems other GSDs develop – her small size insured that – but she eventually lost her sight and her hearing, relying on her sense of smell to follow Cathy and Carrie around. She would find the ball by smell, also, until even that was impossible.
Ellie was consistently Ellie her whole life, and it seems to me that most dogs are like that, true to thine own selves. It’s a consistency we humans only rarely achieve. Everything about dogs seems to be consistent. Their love for their owners never wavers, never fades. It is consistent, constant and pure. Your dog will never break your heart. Eat your couch cushions? Sure. Tear your siding off? Yep. Shred the toilet paper roll? Without a doubt. But never break your heart, except when they leave this world, which is one of life’s great injustices. We outlive our dogs by decades. Who the fuck came up with that rule? No dog owner, that’s for sure.
Goodbye, sweet girl. I’ll see you sometime, across that rainbow bridge. No doubt the luckiest of God’s angels are tossing the ball for you.
