Freckles and her daughter Dimples arrived at our house on April 12, 2000. That night Dimples attacked Sheba, who was terminally ill with cancer. The next day Dimples went back to the shelter and she was euthanized. Freckles quickly settled in and soon established her position in our pack with no violence. Prissy was the female Alpha dog at the time, as Apache was still a puppy, Sheba was old and sick and Ginger too small to compete with such a large dog. If memory serves, it was Freckles who sat snout to snout with Prissy, each with a paw on the other's shoulder and growling low and deep. It seemed like an eternity to me, but in reality was only a few moments, before they both took their paws off and turned away from each other. I can only assume that somehow they determined which was boss. The only other sign of incident came one day when Apache tried to steal some of Freckles food, and Freckles disabused her of that idea with a snarl and snap.
Freckles and Dimples arrive.
Until she was attacked by the other dogs, Freckles led a deserved life of quiet retirement at our home. She had no interest in chasing balls, and her favorite thing was the Sunday drive to get the newspaper. This is not to say she was inactive. She would prance outside and loved to dance in the rain, especially in the mud. The only dog she really associated and played with was Inky, who had grown up in the shelter with her. Those two kept each others ears clean. Freckles had three favorite spots in the house. The number one spot was in the Computer Room in a corner next to the computer. The second was on a corner of the Sofa closest to the TV. The third was her bed on the side of our bed. A bed she did not move far from the last two days of her life.
What we will miss most are her little dances when it was time to eat and get treats. Watching her dance in the rain and mud with such a happy expression on her face and I will m iss the gentle nudge of a snout for some last minute ear scratches before going to bed and sleep at night. We will miss her quiet and gentle manner. We will miss the way she always waited her turn, and never tried to force the others aside for a treat or some attention. She was content to wait her turn, seemingly in the full knowledge that it would come.
We knew little of her life before she came to us, and I decided to try and find more information about her. This is what I found out. She was turned into the shelter in 1991 when she was between 1 and 2 years of age. This would make Freckles at least 13 years old, much older than we thought or she acted. They turned her in because she had attacked the owner's child and chewed his arm. The cause of that attack will be forever a mystery, but I cannot help but think it was provoked. She should have been euthanized, but because she was pregnant, it was put off until the pups were born and weaned. After the pups were weaned, she never went to the vet's office. She spent the rest of her time at the shelter as a guard dog and ratter along with her daughter Dimples who was not adopted for some reason. She was a very efficient ratter, her record being 12 rats in one night. She still bore the scars of those encounters when we got her. During the day she had the run of the shelter, spending most of her time in the office with Inky. Dottie, Dimples and Beethoven, a crippled dog. She attacked a person on the arm one more time. This time a person had grabbed a shelter worker roughly by the arm in the office and Freckles bit them on that arm. She was scheduled to be euthanized again, but was given another reprieve at the request of the person she had bit! In 1997 she began having seizures, which were becoming more frequent in 2000.
The shelter was taken over by the Parish in 2000 and all the dogs, including Freckles were scheduled to be euthanized. We took Apache and Coco at that time. There was a desperate scramble to find homes for as many dogs as possible before the shelter was closed. That is when we took in Freckles and Dimples, only to have to send Dimples back. At that time we had 6 dogs, one of whom was terminally ill. We already had too many dogs, but were talked into taking the others to save their lives. By 2001 Freckles' seizures had ceased and she hasn't had one since. We have not regretted our decision to take in the additional dogs. We ultimately ended up with more dogs; Inky, Dottie and (indirectly) Kaiser because of that closure. Later 2 short term fosters added six more to our pack.
Three times Freckles escaped being euthanized and she was healthy enough that she should have been with us for many more years before age ended her existence. Instead her pack mates attacked her and brought her life to a horrible and painful close. Now we are down to 14 dogs, but we still find ourselves counting out 15 treats, and I still catch myself taking down her food dish at feeding time. When, getting the dogs in at night I find myself looking for the fifteenth dog, and I am filled with sadness when I see the empty bed beside ours. Soon her ashes will join those of Tippy, Bear and Sheba on the shelf in the living room. When it comes our time to leave this life, their ashes will join ours. We will be together again in death, as in life.
