Summer Leaves in December
Amid a joyful series of Christmas gatherings with family, we had to let my parents’ Summer go. After months of treatment for Cushing’s, a series of other problems, and multiple emergency visits, we could not stop her decline. She was six.
I was glad that her final days were spent visiting with us so I could see her one more time, and, as hard as it is, to see her off.
But I’m not writing this to mourn her, but rather to celebrate her. Really, most of all to thank her for what she did for my parents’ lives.
Summer was my parents’ first dog since our family dog Chess died in the summer of 1993, meaning they went just over 20 years without their own dog—not counting many instances of dogsitting in that span. When Summer arrived in October of 2013, we were instantly regaled with tales of “Summer did this,” and questions about “how do we get Summer to do that?”
We got to dogsit her when my parents went away, and she was a teeny, sweet charmer. On the small side for a Golden, she obsessed about food and loved to run and cuddle with equal enthusiasm.
I hoped she would be a hiking companion and a buddy for my parents as they phased into retirement, which she excelled at. What I didn’t expect is that she and my mom would become a serious Rally and Obedience team. The two of them went straight from puppy class into competition classes like it was their destiny.
In about two years with Summer, my mom went from calling me for dogtraining advice to placing on WCRL’s top ten national ranking two years in a row. Before Summer was even really a grownup dog, she was already winning too many ribbons and titles to display.
My mom is certainly a great trainer, but Summer was something special. She’d work for food, for attention, and eventually just for the fun of the game. Their teamwork is the stuff of legend in the WCRL community.
She had a six-year life, just like Gus did. And just like Gus, she transformed everybody else’s life in her short time.
She turned my parents into bigger dog people: they got River after a couple of years with Summer because one dog wasn’t enough. She made my mom a nationally ranked competitor in dog sports. She went up mountains, down into mudholes, and all around the lake in the boat almost every nice day of this past summer and fall.
And then, like with all beautiful summers, it was time for her to go, and nothing we could do could make another beautiful Summer day. Unlike the season, this Summer will not come again, but I am glad to have known her, and I am grateful for what she gave to my family. Sleep soft, good girl, and wherever you are, they better have plenty of cookies.