A Country Girl's Guide to Life: Devastation (Losing Pete)

The day I hoped I would never see arrived yesterday when we lost our beloved Pete in an unfortunate accident. Anyone who has ever met Pete knows what a special guy he was, and anyone who saw him with M knows what an incredible bond they had. He was a constant companion, and M is completely devastated.

J got Peterbilt as a puppy and took him everywhere, in the truck, in the tractor, in the combine. When we asked J how he picked him he said Pete was the one that was running around biting the other puppies' tails. That should have told us something right there. When J started dating K, Pete was left home alone a lot. M didn't think that was good so he would bring him to our house. Eventually, J moved to town with K and Pete moved to our house permanently. Pete loved M right away because he got to do all the fun things with M, all the things he was bred to do, to be a cow dog. And M loved Pete right back, took him everywhere and treated him like his child. In fact, our boys have joked that he treated Pete better then he ever treated them. Maybe a slight exaggeration, but there were times when I swore he loved that dog more than he loved me.

Pete was a bit high-strung and had some quirks. I'll never forget the first weekend J left him with us. By the second day I was calling him every couple of hours to see if he was home yet because the puppy was driving me crazy! He had a strange aversion to tools, any kind of tools, hand tools, power tools, shovels, hoses, anything with a motor and would bark or get something in his mouth and go in circles. We were never sure if it was noise that bothered him or what. His need to have something in his mouth resulted in him inadvertently swallowing rocks and having to have surgery twice to have some removed from his intestine (along with a couple of bottle caps). My brother would say he was retarded. My reply was that there is a fine line between genius and insanity and sometimes he crossed it. He was extremely smart.

J always said he wanted a dog who would fetch because Cruiser had no interest. Well, he got a fetcher in Pete. He'd play for hours and hours if he had someone to play with. He loved kids for that reason. He did not, however, play well with other dogs, especially in his territory. Most of the time he just tried to ignore them.

We never had to worry about him straying too far from home. He loved to go for walks with me but wouldn't leave the yard by himself, and we could leave him at the farm if we needed to, and he'd be right there when we came back although he hated to be left behind. If we ever pulled out a suitcase he'd start pouting, and when we drove away he'd stand on the step and give us the most pitiful look you've ever seen, like he couldn't believe we'd go off and leave him. And it wasn't easy to leave him. We often wished we could call him on the phone while we were on a trip to let him know we'd be home soon.

He had quite the routine during the winter. M would let him in first thing in the morning so he could eat. As soon as we had had breakfast he headed to the door, ready to go to work. He'd sit in the pickup and wait for us while it warmed up. We often wished he could have started the pickup for us. I know he would have if he could have. He was so used to having M all to himself that when I'd get in to go along, I'd get quite the look, like "who said you could come". As we drove off, he'd give M a hug by laying his head on his chest. I'd get a hug on a rare occasion, but M got one every day, many times a day.

Pete loved working cows, sometimes rounding them up even when he wasn't supposed to. He would show them who was boss most of the time, but once they had calves he was pretty careful. He'd been rolled by an angry cow more than once so gave them a wide berth if he could when they had calves. There were times when he'd take a long way around to get back to the pickup so that he wouldn't have to go through the cow yard. He also tried to not get dirty which was funny to watch. He'd try to pick his way around the mud, but eventually he'd have to give up. He just knew that if he was dirty he couldn't come in the house, and worked really hard to clean himself up. He generally preferred to be outside but would like to come in for a little while every day. He wasn't supposed to be on the furniture but couldn't help himself sometimes because he wanted to cuddle and M wouldn't make him get down. He'd try to avoid my look, like if he didn't look at me, I wouldn't notice.

Even though he had his quirks, he was the most loving, devoted companion and had such a personality. His loss is going to continue to hurt for a very long time. Damn animals sure can steal your heart.