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In
Loving Memory of
Dharma
25th April 1998 to 29th
May 2008
Jenny
and Ed McCune's Dharma
Shared
and cherished for the last six months with Vicky and Harry Whitney,
and Major, Lacey, and Smooch.
It started with the
words "If there's anything I can do to help, please let me
know."
I was visiting Jenny
McCune a day after her cycling accident, and they were about to take
her for more tests on her spinal cord. To make a long story short, a
few months later we took Dharma until Ed could find suitable housing
where he could have dogs. So it started out as an offer to help
someone else . . . little did we know what a gift this was to be to
us, to have Dharma a part of our family.
Poor thing had had a
very rough few months, and then to end up in yet another strange
home, and this time without her brother and sister. She's all alone
with these strange people and their strange pack of Berners -- three
pushy, active, noisey, BOUNCY gorillas in Berner suits.
Harry, quite frankly, had
not been happy about her coming back to us after her Christmas
flight to Florida with Ed to visit Jenny (they had hoped Jenny's
cousin would allow Dharma to stay -- nope). Horrified, I asked him
how he could feel that way -- how could you not want Dharma back? He
broke down and choked out the words "I don't want her to die
here." We'd lost our Maddie only a year before, and Dharma was
so much like her. In the three weeks she'd been here before
Christmas, Harry had already started to fall for her, and he didn't
think he could bear the pain of loving and then losing another sweet
girl. But he swallowed that fear, and greeted her with open arms.
*Maddie's
Tribute Page here*
Dharma quietly pined for
her real home and people for a couple of months, never moving far
from where she last saw her dad go out the door, leaving her behind.
She was probably thinking "Good food, nice attention, fun walks
and romps with the others, but they'll come for me any time now and
we can go home."
Until April, I hadn't
realized there had been a change. We had to make an emergency trip
to Denver and left the dogs with our house/dog sitter. Upon
returning four days later, Dharma turned herself inside out greeting
us! SHE MISSED US!!! She barked and danced and greeted us with
genuine love in her eyes. "You're home, you're home!!! I missed
you! Thank goodness you're HOME!"
Oh my gosh, she loves us
-- she considers this HOME now . . . And every day from then on, she
greeted our return from work just like the others, with genuine glee
and joy. She ventured away from her vigil at the door, came to us
for snuggles and pizza crusts, snoozed near our feet with the
others. We no longer had to keep her on a long Flexilead on walks,
expecting her to take off for "home." Ed was making no
progress on finding another home, and we just kind of slid into
forgetting Dharma was ever going to leave us.
And then two weeks ago
today, she had an "episode" -- she just sort of stiffened
and looked odd for a few seconds. But then she was up and asking for
a butt scratch, so Harry thought he'd been seeing things. Two days
later, I saw the same thing. And the next day, we knew she was in
trouble. These were some type of seizures, and they were coming
frequently now. Then she declined breakfast on Sunday. Icicles
stabbed our hearts -- big trouble.
After a horrid week of
rapid decline with nothing working to fix or make her better,
whispered messages from Jenny and Ed about love and it was okay to
go if she needed to, she decided yesterday morning it was time. She
asked Harry at about 4 AM to go outside, and immediately collapsed
on the cold cement walkway. Harry couldn't convince her to go on out
in the yard to pee, so he went inside to do that for her. He came
back to encourage her to try again, knelt down to stroke her head
and tell her it was okay, and she managed to raise her head to look
at him, thumped her tail one last time, sighed deeply, and left us.
Dharma didn't leave
behind any legacies, no titles or awards or puppies, but she left
pieces of her beautiful heart in all of ours, to replace the pieces
of ours that she took with her. Nobody remembers her registered
name, or where her "papers" are, just that she had come
from Elke Adair and that Elke still kept in touch with them, cared
very much about this puppy she had placed in their care. But she had
a great life, was so well loved by so many of us, and gave so much
just by her sweet, quiet presence in our lives. What a surprising
gift she's been to us! Geeze, you start out to help someone else and
you're given the greater gift.
Please keep Jenny and Ed
in your thoughts -- this has been so much harder on them than it has
been on us. Jenny is hoping to come back home this summer -- she's
out of a wheelchair and walking now and is working very hard to
rebuild her life. Losing Dharma from a distance, not being able to
be there to help her baby through this, has focused on how much
she's lost. It really puts life into perspective, how quickly things
can change, so take a moment, look into those furry brown-eyed
faces, breathe them in, and freeze that moment.
Another diamond in the
sky now . . . sweet Dharma.
Vicky Whitney in
Bozeman, Montana
*Veteran Berners Home Page*
*Samson's
Story *My Gang
*Sunny,Simmy,Barney,Pixie
*Friend's Gallery
*In Loving Memory
*Histio Roll Call
*Bernese Art
*Berner Fun Stuff
*Berner Articles & Info
*Berner Shop
*Longlease Links.
*Humour.
*Guestbook.
*Berner Fundraisers
*Recent Updates
*
*Longlease
Bernese Mountain Dogs Home Page*
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