Rikki

Born, Boston, MA, January, 1987
Died, Los Altos, CA, May 6, 2001

One summer day, several of us were passing by Dartmouth's central area, The Green, with Rikki in tow. A smaller dog that also lived in our house, named Fozzie, was a hundred yards away, and from the look of it, had just lost a fight with a bigger dog, which was hovering over him. Rikki broke into a full run and flew into the bigger dog in a rage, knocking it down. Then she escorted Fozzie away. That's when I wanted Rikki to be my dog.

I bought Rikki's love with a downpayment of several dog biscuits. She followed me, one day in her late puppyhood, on a four-mile run through a place the Dartmouth track team called Pine Park. She never stopped following me.

Sig Ep was a track fraternity, and Rikki started running, more so than other dogs, even. Over more than a dozen years, Rikki ran countless thousands of miles, with me or without anyone else. During those long years of dog life, I saw her chase cows, bulls, deer, cats, squirrels, birds, rabbits, chipmunks, groundhogs, raccoons, possum, two skunks, flies, beetles, moths, and a fox. She killed plenty of what she chased, but never bit a person.

I took Rikki from New Hampshire to Ohio to Indiana to California. Her life thus spanned the entire width of the continental U.S. All but three years of her life, she was able to be with me on almost an hourly basis, following me to my classes and to my offices.

I think her life was as good as it ever got when I was teaching in Ohio. Rikki would follow me all day (except for lunch and breakfast), and then in the afternoons, go to track or cross country practice. She quickly bored of what we were doing and ran wild on her own in the meadows and woods on WRA's campus. If it was hot, she would end her sprees by diving into the Hockey Pond, and the fact that my yelling could not keep her from getting into its muddy water told me that she liked that better than food. I would give her dinner back at home, and she began a strange habit of eating just half of her dinner, then taking a break to go over to the window to look out for several seconds. The apartment had a majestic view of campus, and she was either surveying it for prey, or just enjoying the view. Then she would go back to her bowl and finish the other half of her meal.

During the fourth U.S. presidential administration of her life, I took Rikki for a walk to the park near my house in California. She had stopped running about a year earlier, and her walks had grown shorter, as anything too long left her wobbly, and on the edge of collapse. I took her, on this walk, to a small landscaped hill that lies at the far end of the park --- the farthest she had walked from home in months. For the only time I had ever witnessed, she decided to turn back on the walk, and headed home without looking at me. I accompanied her back, followed her, and then held and carried her during some tough hours during which she had seizures and eventually lost all power except to cry. At the vet's office, at about 12:30 pm on May 6, 2001, Rikki died when I was holding her head and a shot ended her crying. She was fourteen years and four months old --- the oldest big dog I have ever known. Ever since that first box of dog biscuits, she had trusted me to take care of her. That trip to the vet was the last thing I could do for her.

The last two mornings of Rikki's life, I awoke to her. On Saturday, I woke up with Rikki having nestled in the crook of my legs without waking me. It was not unheard of for her to get into bed with me, but quite rare. On Sunday, she leapt onto my bed and poked her snout at me until I woke up. Then she hopped off the bed, and led me to the front door, and wagged when I let her out on her final walk.

She had a way of sitting that led several people to independently come to use the word "regal". I found something charming about her complex and willful pursuit of a few simple canine goals. She entered rooms and analyzed them to see if her goals could be met. If a person had food, she begged or, as recently as in her last month, outwitted them for it. If I was there, she was happy. If a window let her patrol for prey, she went to it, and stared with unnerving thoroughness, intensity, and patience. The joy she showed when I returned from an absence was total.

In the hours since she's left me, I have dozens of times unintentionally reminded myself how deeply she is ingrained in my thoughts. When a shadow shifts, I think it's her. When I turn a corner, I look down in case she's lying there. When I hear a scratch, I think it's her at a door. And now I am not the keeper of Rikki, but of Rikki's ghost.