Emma & Company - A Tribute

We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate for having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein do we err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with the extension of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.

From The Outermost House by Henry Beston

April 18, 2005

Yesterday we took Emma on a nine mile hike. We had the most beautiful day. The sun was shining - the air was clear. We hiked up to the top of Kennedy Peak and looked out over two valleys -- one Fort Valley -- the other -- the valley with Luray -- I think that one is called Page Valley. It was just a beautiful day and Emma just trotted along the whole way. She took a nice nap part way through the hike while we stopped and had lunch. She never gets to go with me much -- we no longer do any classes together and the only car ride she has seems to be when we go to the vet. So this was such a special day for us. I almost didn't take her because I thought she might not be able to do the hike. All she ever wants is to be with me..

October 31, 2005

We had the most beautiful morning and Emma laid in the cool grass on the lawn of the vet clinic while Dr. Coston gave us a hug and gave Emma a peaceful ending to a long and good life. I stroked her face and looked into those eyes once last time. I wanted my face to be the last one she saw and my voice to be the last one she heard ... Emma was my third dog but she was the dog that changed my life. She endured my training techniques as I practiced on her through her first obedience title and training for open. She was the first (and last) dog to suffer an ear pinch from me in training the retrieve. She was a dog that taught me that nature prevails over nurture. She taught me that you SHOULD temperament test before you pick a puppy. And she taught me patience, and not a small amount of humility. She was a dog who was bred to be a hunting dog and ended up living in a house -- with her primary job assignment - that of a counter cruiser!

Emma brought me to CCI. She was named for a guide dog named Emma in a series of books by Sheila Hocken. I named Emma before I saw her. The seed planted by those books most certainly began my journey to puppy raising.

As my mom told me on the phone this morning when I called to tell her about Emma she was incorrigible -- and she was! Just 6 months ago she helped herself to half a cake we had prepared for a party saying goodbye to a puppy raiser moving to Alaska. She had been known to eat a batch of bananas peels and all -- and broccoli stalks raw and whole. There was no loaf of bread safe in the house. She had a long stretch and her reach towards anything resembling food was monumental. As a puppy she resembled a fish on a line with me on the other end trying to control this mass of energy named Emma.

She was a natural and beautiful swimmer and taught many dogs the art of the perfect tennis ball retrieve. She waited to pitch the ball back to me -- careful that the other dogs not take her ball from her -- never letting them interfere with her game. As graceful as she was in the water and with the retrieve, Emma never managed to master the 48 broad jump -- thought we spent years trying ......she suffered through all my persistence -- until it became finally obvious to me that neither of us enjoyed it anymore.

She and I spent a lot of time together - she was my running partner for nearly 8 years until she told me she didn't want to run anymore. We spent endless hours in dog training classes. She found me in the yard or house wherever I was. She was a quiet presence beside me while I was working. I always sensed her presence and she sensed mine.

Emma raised 14 CCI puppies and not a few dogs have a little nip on their nose to remind them of their first encounter with Emma. I am sure that ahead for me are dogs that are just as challenging, but there will never be another dog that has such a spot in my heart as this one.

November 7, 2005

Saturday after the farmer's market, I found just the right spot and dug a nice garden area -- it's the spot where I frequently stood to throw the ball and where Emma came back to return it. It is a beautiful spot - with views of Edinburg Gap, Signal Knob, and Little North Mountain. I never stood there without a tennis ball in my hand to throw for Emma.

On Monday morning, I planted a red dogwood bush purchased from JC at the market, and laid Emma's ashes to rest along with her tennis ball, a piece of her wading pool and a little guardian angel medal that I had for her. I put a stone on top - one with a beautiful butterfly that Susan made. As I put her ashes in the ground, a wind came up and blew them across the yard a bit -- somehow that signified Emma's flight to me ... the other thing that happened as I walked around the yard with the empty bag -- it was windy -- the wind took some of the final ashes and blew them in my face -- a little goodbye kiss from Emma I think...

This is very strange - but on Monday afternoon - Orlando, the barn cat (who had been missing since late July) came back!! Dave was outside and felt something brush his legs and there was Orlando! I have no idea where he had been but I am certain that Emma sent him back -- he picked up right where he left off -- back to the same spot in the barn -- back to begging to be fed, sitting on the back porch - it was as if he had never been gone.

LESSONS LEARNED FROM EMMA

Your heart dog is not necessarily the one you "think" you love the most or the one that is the least difficult - sometimes your heart dog is the dog you struggled with the most; the one that was most difficult to live with.

Absence is greater than presence.

Taking a dog for granted becomes a big regret.

I miss her still ..

Emma Jean Cocoa Bean
b.12/03/93 - d.10/31/05