Day: August 7, 2017

Robin Gibbons, the breeder who sold us Gus, came over to the farm to see him again, it was her first visit since we took him home five weeks ago, and Gus was happy to see her again, she was showered with kisses amidst much joyous wriggling.

Gus clearly remembered here, there was something special about them being together. Robin sat with us and talked a bit, and Red and Fate did their thing with her, she also brought some carrots out to Lulu and Fanny.

Robin was happy to see Gus, she said he was clearly pretty happy here and happily settled in. She watched him torture Fate and chase her around the  yard.

This was Robin’s first effort at breeding, and the vet and I and many others were much impressed at the way she did it. There are lots of good ways to get a dog, including adopting one that needs a home, or choosing the dog you really want thoughtfully. Another is getting a dog from a conscientious breeder who take care to strengthen and perpetuate the best traits in dogs – good temperament, sound health, intelligence and loyalty.

We were urging Robin to breed again, there ought to be more dogs like Gus in the world (and his mother Hannah) and more breeders like Robin, who care much more about the dogs they bring into the world than they do about money.

Robin is special to us, she welcomed us into her home week after week so we could get to know Gus and help socialize him. Apparently, that worked. He already jumps into the cars of total strangers hoping to go for a ride with them.

Good breeders choose their mating dogs for health and disposition, as well as bone health and social skills. They monitor the litter for behavioral or health problems. They match the puppies up with people. Good shelter and rescue workers do that also.

I’m glad that Robin is going to breed again. That means a whole bunch of happy and healthy dogs and happy and blessed dog owners. It takes an enormous amount of work to produce a dog like Red or Fate or Gus, they don’t just fall out of the sky. Robin did the work.

Don’t ever let anyone tell you there is only one way to get a dog. They are not your friends, or the friends of dogs. We hope to see Robin often.

Emma sent me this evocative photo yesterday of Robin walking for the first time. There was something stirring about the photo, something timeless and elegaic. Robin is not only walking, she’s walking away from me in a sense, she is becoming a person, not a baby, a child, not a helpless infant.

Not something that is adorable, but something with character and depth.

Robin is turning into person, with her own evolving consciousness and awareness. And I get to see it in this stream of photographs.

Someone asked me the other night, as people often do, if I was sad not to be closer to her, to see this evolution personally and first hand. I have thought about that, and I think the answer is no, I don’t feel sad in any way about  Robin.

We live far apart, and there are geographic and emotional and practical limits on the amount of time we will spend together, the depth to which I will get to know her. I love her and enjoy her, but I am still living outside of that circle, and that is a comfortable place for me.

Robin has two loving parents, is in a wonderful day care program, has doting grandparents, including her grandmother, my ex-wife Paula, who takes care of  her for part of every week. They are close, and both are fortunate for that. But I love my life, and am  happy to be where I am, as I expect she will be happy to be where she is.

I have a saying, I often repeat it to myself, or to friends who are lamenting their lives. “This is the life I chose, I have no right to complain about it.”

How Robin and I will evolve together is uncertain, and there are certainly times when I wish it would be easier to see her, but that complaint would, to me,  dishonoring my own life, which I have worked hard to build and also love very much. I am not shocked when dogs get sick and die, I am not shocked when I can’t have everything I might want. This is the life I chose, and I am grateful for it.

Robin reminds of the relentless passage of time, how short our time here is, how important it is to live this time well. In another blink, she will be living her own life, perhaps raising her own child, and I will be a photo in a desktop folder, perhaps a vague memory or two, the strange grandpa with donkeys and dogs on a farm far away.

This photo touched a lot of chords with me. Emma has a gift for that,  her photos almost always have meaning. If I regret anything, it is that she and I are not a greater part of one another’s lives.

But she loves her life, as I love mine, and that was the point, wasn’t it? Isn’t that something to celebrate? Nothing is free, not even a good life. As you walk, Robin, I wish for the wind to be at your back, and you chose a life of freedom and meaning.