Joined
·
656 Posts
Please keep Susan in your thoughts and prayers tonight as she lost her beloved "Patience" today.
"Pay" was a 17 year old dowager empress that Susan referred often and affectionately to as the "antique cocker". As a puppy, I think she was initially named more from a position of hope than fact.
When I asked Susan some time ago, how she got into the dogs games, her response was "two words: Patience - Survival".
She was 20 pounds of feisty, independence and ferocious devotion. A fistful that Susan's father declared at one time, "this is the worst dog we've ever had in this family!"...but I suspect that statement was made as a left-handed paean to who she was.
Susan often said that Pay trained the labs first before she had a chance to.
Patience introduced Susan to obedience and agility competition, out of a need for keeping this highly intelligent animal in a job that kept her from spending her idle moments gnawing on the Ferragamo shoes, opening doors and gates, and authoring a general state of mayhem.
One thing led to another, and now Susan's life is filled with labradors in various stages of training and achievement - but all filled with Susan's talent and love.
Patience occupied, throughout her life, a quiet post of supremacy and dominion, but always keeping Susan first and foremost in her sphere of realm.
Susan - as those who know her would expect - provided her a wonderful life, as she does with all her canine family. And she held her gently as the vet provided Pay the release from the 'surly bonds', Pay's final act being chomping enthusiastically on some liver treats.
Her body had failed her but her spirit was alive and well. And lives on in Susans's heart and memory.
I'm so glad I had a chance to meet her - and Susan will miss her terribly. In a way, she started her on a path and helped to make her who she is with dogs.
Godspeed little Patience, I'm sure you've already barreled past St. Peter at the Gate....
Lydia
"Pay" was a 17 year old dowager empress that Susan referred often and affectionately to as the "antique cocker". As a puppy, I think she was initially named more from a position of hope than fact.
When I asked Susan some time ago, how she got into the dogs games, her response was "two words: Patience - Survival".
She was 20 pounds of feisty, independence and ferocious devotion. A fistful that Susan's father declared at one time, "this is the worst dog we've ever had in this family!"...but I suspect that statement was made as a left-handed paean to who she was.
Susan often said that Pay trained the labs first before she had a chance to.
Patience introduced Susan to obedience and agility competition, out of a need for keeping this highly intelligent animal in a job that kept her from spending her idle moments gnawing on the Ferragamo shoes, opening doors and gates, and authoring a general state of mayhem.
One thing led to another, and now Susan's life is filled with labradors in various stages of training and achievement - but all filled with Susan's talent and love.
Patience occupied, throughout her life, a quiet post of supremacy and dominion, but always keeping Susan first and foremost in her sphere of realm.
Susan - as those who know her would expect - provided her a wonderful life, as she does with all her canine family. And she held her gently as the vet provided Pay the release from the 'surly bonds', Pay's final act being chomping enthusiastically on some liver treats.
Her body had failed her but her spirit was alive and well. And lives on in Susans's heart and memory.
I'm so glad I had a chance to meet her - and Susan will miss her terribly. In a way, she started her on a path and helped to make her who she is with dogs.
Godspeed little Patience, I'm sure you've already barreled past St. Peter at the Gate....
Lydia
