Our Dog, Maggie

In 1999 I began to hunt ducks and geese for the first time, introduced to it by a co-worker. I was quickly hooked and realized that a well trained retrieving dog was just as valuable as a gun. When another co-worker told me her son had a Labrador Retriever who was about to have puppies, I was hooked. Actually the pups were 75% Lab and 25% German Shorthair Pointer, still an awesome hunting mix. One Saturday in February 2002 I drove to the son's home in Tennessee to pick out a pup, and I brought home Maggie.

Maggie was seven weeks old on her first day at home, and Michael was 5, Abbey 4, and Mae was 1, just short of her second birthday. Here is a picture of Maggie's first day at home with Michael and Abbey.

Early on I dedicated myself to training her to retrieve and she took to it very well. We were constantly going to lakes and fields to practice. I checked out a retriever training video at the local library and followed their instructions. In a short time I had Maggie retrieving real birds in addition to "dummies" and also working from hand signals.

In September 2002 she retrieved her first dead goose on our first hunt together. This was the same hunt where my Uncle Jim killed his first goose ever. Though this is a bad picture, it's me and Maggie with her first goose after she went and fetched it out of the water. She was only 9 months old and I've got the goose in my right hand.

Later that same year I captured a very nice picture of Maggie on a late season goose hunt in northeast Missouri. Because Maggie was wearing a Cabela's camo hunting vest, I sent the photo in to Cabela's and they published it in a seasonal flyer they send out. I have copies of that flyer somewhere. This is the picture they published.

As the years went by the kids got older and my affection for waterfowl hunting tapered off, so Maggie became less of a hunting dog and more of a pet. Last December 23 Maggie had her 8th birthday, but it might be her last.

Over the last 14-16 months Maggie's coat has changed considerably. She has gone from a deep chocolate to a rusty/orangey color and her hair is brittle. Now she pants a lot, drinks tons of water, and recently developed infected sores on her body and ear infections. She was due for vaccinations last week so I took her in. Instead of vaccinations we did bloodwork, and the results are in. She has Cushing's disease. I had never heard of it before but it's caused by a tumor which forces the overproduction of a chemical in her body, creating every symptom she has. I didn't realize it, but she has lost 13 pounds since her last visit to the vet. Muscle mass wastes away and now her ribs and spine are visible. Treatment options are outrageously expensive and don't prolong her life, so here we are. Tonight we told the kids that our time with Maggie is limited and that she won't make it to old age, like 12. I assume it will be much less. She has been a good dog, a really good dog, and I know that even though a dog can get on your nerves, we will miss her.

Here is a picture I took today and you can see we have Maggie's elbow bandaged due to infected skin sores. She is losing her coat now - the disease causes that. The hair around her neck is gone and her belly is almost bald. Eventually she'll have hair on nothing but her head and legs, if she makes it that long. Eight years isn't that long for a dog to live, so we are very sad, but it's still eight years with a great dog that we are glad to have. These pictures were taken about two hours before Annette and I told the kids Maggie is terminally ill.