The end of a Clementine era

  • Well, Greg and I had a dif­fi­cult deci­sion to make when we had been in Ari­zona for a few months. Folks who have read the blog reg­u­larly will know how very, very fond we were of good-dog Clemen­tine, the bluet­ick coon­hound. She was the only dog I’ve had that I could remem­ber, but Greg, who had many canine friends grow­ing up, said that she was def­i­nitely the best dog she had ever had.

    Before any­one starts to get too sad, let me has­ten to say that Clemen­tine didn’t die. But we will have to get along with­out her all the same. When we were mov­ing here, it was too hot to ship her by air, and in the last few months, we’ve just been real­iz­ing that it wasn’t going to work out to have Clemen­tine here. We’ve moved from a house in the coun­try to an apart­ment in the city, and Phoenix is too hot for dogs to play out­side much for months at a time. She’s a good dog, but it didn’t seem like it would be a fair thing to do to a farm dog.

    And then, there was the bet­ter deal that she had in Mis­souri. I’ve been extremely thank­ful over the years that we had the best pet-sitter in the world to leave Clem with when we would go on vaca­tions. Just five min­utes away was a cer­ti­fied pet sit­ter, Lau­rie, with a farm full of the hap­pi­est dogs, horses, cats and chick­ens I’ve ever seen. And over the years, that came to be Clem’s home away from home. When Lau­rie and her hus­band adopted their two nieces, Clemen­tine got to be the girls’ spe­cial best-dog and came in for more than her share of pets and hugs. When we found that we wouldn’t be able to ship Clemen­tine until win­ter, Lau­rie vol­un­teered to take Clem at no cost to us until then. And we had always men­tioned that we might be talk­ing about her stay­ing with them.

    We had been miss­ing her and look­ing for­ward to her com­ing out. But it was becom­ing more obvi­ous all the time that it would be a tough place for her to be happy in. And know­ing that we had taken her away from her other home just really made it seem wrong.

    So we gave Lau­rie a call, and as it turns out, she was just try­ing to fig­ure out how to tell us that she really didn’t want to part with Clemen­tine. She had really become a mem­ber of the family.

    I miss Clemen­tine. I think of how fun it would be to take her to the dog park or just have her here with me when I’m relax­ing or work­ing in my office. She was such a good dog — I won­der if I’ll ever find another one that good. But no mat­ter how many times I go over it, I come up with the same con­clu­sion: It wouldn’t have been right for us to make her come here; it would’ve been selfish.

    So Greg and I are dog­less for right now. The place seems a lit­tle quiet. But some­where in Mis­souri, a very happy coon­hound is bark­ing, and I can almost hear it. It makes my heart light.

    Here’s a roundup of some of my favorite Adven­tures with Dog:

    Good­bye from your First Fam­ily, Clemen­tine. We’ll miss you always.


    Related posts:

    1. Pointil­list Clementine
    2. It’s like an inter­net of smell
    3. Dog with leaves
    4. Mush­ing it up old school
    5. Life as it should be

    January 25th, 2012 | Grace | 4 Comments | Tags: , ,

4 Responses and Counting...

  • pho­tini 01.25.2012

    i’m feel­ing for ya. Last sum­mer (2010) we adopted a res­cue dog. She really bonded with our adult daugh­ter. So after she (the daugh­ter, not the dog) got mar­ried last April, it was decided that Pound Puppy would go live with Daugh­ter and Son-in-law. She was with them for 5 months in Okla­homa where S-i-L was sta­tioned with the Army. Then they got orders to Ger­many. PP came home from Okla­homa with us in Octo­ber and stayed until Decem­ber when she flew to Ger­many to be with the new­ly­weds again. I keep say­ing I don’t want another dog. There can be no dog like PP — she was the best of the three dogs we’ve had. I miss her, but know she is bet­ter and hap­pier with Daugh­ter. But just yes­ter­day when I was out for the mail, I saw a woman walk­ing a dog and thought, “What a beau­ti­ful dog! Maybe.…” before I quickly reminded myself that all dogs are not like PP. But real love means want­ing the best for the object of one’s love and that is why PP is in Ger­many and Clemen­tine is in MO. >sigh<

  • Grace

    That’s it exactly. I can go along and really know it was all for the best, but when I see peo­ple walk­ing their dog or out at the dog park, I get sad.

    Well, we may not last too long before we bring home another dog. I was kind of think­ing in terms of a cat, but I start to real­ize that Greg will always think that’s just an imi­ta­tion dog, and hav­ing both seems like it’d be rough in a small place.

  • s-p

    Awww… I’m sad for you guys. We now have 3 dogs (youngest daugh­ter who still lives at home just adopted a rottie-lab mix from the pound). You really do need a yard and a dog­gie door for dogs in AZ. Hope­fully you’ll land in a house some day soon and be able to get another dog. I can’t imag­ine my life with­out a big, dumb, lazy dog.

  • Grace

    Well, it means that Greg can go look at pos­si­ble pup­pies online, which he does all the time any­way. So I guess it’s a good thing for him.

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