Life Lessons from a Very Good Girl

Lynn: A Valedictory

How could this small body hold

So a thing immense as Death?¹

As one of my favorite books reminds us, “maybe good luck and bad luck are all mixed up. You never know what will happen next.” A couple of weeks ago, my husband, Matt, and I traveled from our home in Switzerland to Minnesota for our daughter’s college graduation. Right in the middle of the ceremony, we got a call from an animal hospital in Switzerland. Our dog, Lynn, had stopped eating and was spiking a fever, so her Tierferienheim (animal vacation home) had taken her to the hospital, and the blood test showed that her liver was failing.

Lynn had been sick off and on for about two years with what was probably lupus. Her vet had figured out that we could keep her mostly stable with a high dose of prednisone every day, but we knew it wouldn’t work forever. We had to acknowledge that Lynn would not bounce back from liver failure, and that her time had come. So there I was, sobbing in the middle of a boisterous crowd that was cheering for their graduates, as I gave the vet permission to put Lynn to sleep. And then, choking back tears, I, too, cheered for my graduate.

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Slovakian Village Dog

We adopted Lynn almost ten years ago, when we were living in Prague. She was rescued from a small village in eastern Slovakia. When I first met her, at a farm south of Prague where she was being fostered, I confess I was underwhelmed. She was small and unprepossessing, with short crooked legs and a scruffy coat. She rolled over for a belly rub from me and the kids, but she was wary of Matt.

Lynn’s vet thought Lynn looked like Dobby, from Harry Potter.

And so the first lesson Lynn taught me was to have faith. At home with us, she settled down and settled in. Far from continuing to fear Matt, she chose him as her favorite. (So unfair! I was the one who fed, walked, and cleaned up after her!) I quickly came to love her odd, quirky appearance, and I told people that her breed was Slovakian Village Dog, because—in a case of genetic regression to the mean—the rescue dogs from that part of Europe tend to have a similar short and shaggy vibe.²

Lynn turned out to be delightfully playful. If there was no one willing to play fetch with her, she would play fetch with herself, tossing her rope toy, racing across the room to grab it, and tossing it across the room again, ad infinitum. In the backyard, she loved to steal the apples that were rotting under our tree and run at top speed as we chased her.

She also revealed herself to be remarkably intelligent. She mastered an eccentric collection of commands. For example, “noose” meant she should stick her head through her harness, “rinse cycle” meant she should plunge into the snow to clean the mud off her undercarriage, and “spin” meant she should whirl clockwise (for some reason she couldn’t go the other way). It also became apparent that she had a mental map of our neighborhood for at least three kilometers in every direction from our front door. We had about a dozen different routes for long walks, and I used to start her off on a particular route and then let her lead the way. She always knew exactly where we were supposed to go.

We didn’t know the details of Lynn’s life in that Slovakian village, but we knew it had been grim. She had scars on her neck, as well as a persistent fear of eastern European men, especially if they were carrying tools. An x-ray last year showed that a small bullet was lodged in her rib. And yet, in spite of her terrible past, she blossomed into a happy, friendly, trusting dog. She demonstrated to us that it is always possible to make a fresh start.

Abenteuerhund

Dog trainers will tell us that dogs are happiest when they have a job, and Lynn was no exception. Once we moved to Switzerland, her job—which she performed with gusto—was to be my faithful companion on my hikes. I called her my Abenteuerhund (adventure dog) because she hiked with me to the summits of twenty-six mountains, most of them more than once. Fellow hikers marveled at her speed and endurance on such “kurze beine” (short legs).

At the summit of Chellenchöpfli, in Canton Basel-Landschaft.

Unless cows were nearby, Lynn hiked off-leash. She would dart ahead, take side trips into the woods, and double back to check in. When the path forked, she knew to sit and wait for me to point the way. She was speedier than I was, and so I have many photos of her looking back at me as if to say, “What the heck is taking you so long?

On our way up to the summit of Kaiseregg, in Canton Fribourg.

And I was always amused by Lynn’s total lack of interest in the stunning views. She was too focused on fascinating scents, pinecones, sticks, and critters to notice the scenery.

At the summit of Farnere, in Canton Lucerne.

Lynn went on her last hike two weeks before she died. Some friends were visiting, and we headed up to our starting point on a mountain pass in the shadow of Eiger’s north face. Lynn gamely stuck with us for a couple of kilometers straight uphill, but then she petered out. I waited with her at a picnic area while the rest of the group continued on to the end of the trail.

Above Kleine Scheidegg, in Canton Bern.

They returned an hour later, and we headed back down. It was a fitting end to Lynn’s career as my Abenteuerhund. She taught me to embrace adventure, even when it’s a challenge.

Snowface

When our kids were little, their name for elderly dogs with gray muzzles was “snowface.” About a year ago, it became impossible to ignore that Lynn had become a snowface too, that she was slowing down, that her bouts with severe fevers were coming at closer intervals, and that she was not recovering as fully anymore. But she adapted. She spent more time on walks sniffing around, and less on bounding around. When she was no longer able to climb the steps to our apartment, she learned not to be afraid of the elevator. (It was really cute how she would excitedly watch the inside of the elevator shaft fly by. She was trying to understand what was happening in that tiny, magical room.) When she was no longer able to leap onto the sofa from a standing start, she learned to take a running start. And when she was no longer able even to take a running start, she contented herself with a spot on the rug.

I was moved by Lynn’s resilience, and by her lack of dread about what was happening to her. Instead, she showed me how to take every day as it comes. On those days she was feeling well, she enjoyed her life fully, totally oblivious to worries about the future.

Love and Friendship

I posted about Lynn’s death on social media, and so many friends reached out to me, shared memories of Lynn, and imagined her in a Swiss version of the Happy Hunting Grounds, frolicking with cows high in the Alps. Their comments were a great comfort to me.

Lynn would bark like crazy every time the doorbell rang, but she actually loved my friends. She had her favorites, though. Ha and Daniel discovered that Lynn “was corruptible” (in Daniel’s words) and could be bought off with a treat. The moment Lynn saw Anastasia coming up the stairs, she would sit perkily, eagerly awaiting the salmon or venison bites Anastasia always brought. And any time Svanhvít and Christian came to dinner, Lynn was in raptures. As Christian put it, “In retrospect, thank God that I used every opportunity to give her some treats.” I concur! So this is our final lesson, one that Lynn would heartily endorse: The secret to happiness is love and friendship, and the secret to love and friendship is to be generous—with our heart, and also with treats!

Ha took this photo, the last one we have of Lynn, nine days before Lynn died. I was holding a treat over Ha’s head, hence Lynn’s rapt expression.

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How about you, readers? What have you learned about life from your pets? Please share your thoughts (and adorable stories) in the comments!

The Tidbit

1. These are the final lines of the poem “For a Dead Kitten,” by Sara Henderson Hay. You can read the whole poem (it’s short) here.

2. I also used to joke that Lynn was half dachshund, half border collie, and half Jack Russell terrier, which always prompted pedantic types to inform me that I had gotten the math wrong.