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April 22, 2006
An Ode to June
I have owned my beloved border collie June for about 3 1/2 years. It was a September day when I visited the San Angelo, TX city pound. I went with the explicit intent of getting a dog, if I could find one that would suit me and my lifestyle. At the time, I was thinking something along the lines of a black lab, an active, outdoorsy dog who wanted to run and play outside as much as I did. And besides, pound dogs are almost always at least partially mixed with black lab, so finding one of those would be easy.
The whole experience of visiting a dog pound is a sad one. Your very presence releases the caucophony of dogs barking, wild posturing, and obsessive/compulsive behaviors that are undoubetly the result of being lost, rejected by owners, and confined without exercise. Some dogs bark unendingly, some spin in fast circles, others pounce at the cage bars as if to attack you. There are also others that don't quite fit into this category, those that quiver and curl into impenetrable balls in the corners of cells. If they do per chance make eye contact with you, their eyes are empty, vacant, they've checked out of this life. I'm sure anyone who's visited a pound will agree that this is a difficult experience.
I can vividly recall rounding the corner to the aisle of dog cages to which June was confined. My attention was not drawn immediately to June, but to another border collie next to her who was leaping vertically in its small cage. With each spring, the dog would bark in wild anticipation of something. Then I looked at the quiet border collie sitting in the cage next to the leaper. This was June. She was sitting at attention, with her mouth wide open in an official dog smile. As she sat, her tail was wagging, sliding back and forth across the dirty floor of her cage. She was neither wild and crazy or entirely checked out like most of the rest of the dogs in that place. I read the sign on her, "Name: June Bug, Sex: Female, Age: 1 1/2 years, Location Found: Owner Release, Removal Date from Pound: Today." June Bug the border collie was scheduled to be removed from the pound and euthanized today.
My original intent had been to visit the pound, interact with a few dogs, leave the pound and think about the decision, and return the next day to choose a dog. It didn't take very much interaction with June to realize that I wanted her. And I couldn't wait with my decision, because she wouldn't be there tomorrow when I returned. She wasn't at all what I thought I had wanted in a dog before going to a pound, but she was okay with me.
I brought her home from the pound that afternoon. The next morning I took her on our first run together. She had some leash manners, but she was clueless as to what we were doing. She was skittish, darting every which way, crossing right in front of me, and generally doing everything but the steady forward progress of a typical run. But border collies are some of the most intelligent dogs out there, and it didn't take her long to figure out this running thing.
I could probably count on 10 fingers the times that I have run without June since I got her. Sure, there have been times when I've warmed up with her, but left her to amble around the infield while I run track workouts. Or, the times that I unleash her while I'm running repeats up and down a trail. Even in these cases, she usually runs right along next to me, at whatever pace I set. She's run 22+ mile long runs across the searing desert with me. She was there when I was 9 miles into the backcountry, alone, and went face-to-face with a mountain lion. She has paced me in any fartlek or tempo workout out on the trails. She even runs with me on those ridiculously slow, exhausted days where I can't seem to put one foot in front of the other very smoothly. The only times that she hasn't been out there running with me was when she has been sick or has had surgery, and you can't blame her for that!
In this time, she has been boudless with energy, never getting too hot, never getting too tired, never doing anything but running with me at whatever pace I set. Until today, June got too hot and too tired. Again, I can't blame her. This poor dog is covered with Wyoming winter fur, it's thick, heavy, in multiple layers, and it covers her entirely. This winter, she's even grown fur tufts over her feet to privde insulation from the snow. This day, this 75 degree day of full sunshine, must have come as a shock to her. I'm sure she will be shedding that hair madly in the next few weeks, but there was nothing for her to do under all that hair today. Poor girl, she stuck it out today (Well, she had to, we were several miles from home.), but she got very hot and very tired.
So, this blog entry has been an ode to June, because, in my entirely impartial opinion, June is the toughest, fastest, most enduring running companion.
I did run today, with the hot dog (Hah!), 8 hilly miles. It was 75 degrees. I wore shorts and a tank top, and it was lovely, so lovely. If only I didn't have to worry about the hot dog.
Posted by Meghan at April 22, 2006 7:21 PM
Comments
I love your story about June! I felt tears welling up in my eyes when I read how she was to be euthanized the next day!!! You saved her!!!! Reminds me a lot of Roxy. She's from a pound too...and one of the most loyal little critters there is. You will probably never find a better running partner - always goes your pace, never complains, always lets you decide what you're doing on that given day! Yeah June Bug! :)
Posted by: Beth at April 24, 2006 6:00 PM