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Dog StoriesWhat's Here?
Please Note: photos are interspersed between the dog stories. Cosmo! A new adoptee, name and all, from Westie Rescue Colorado. Saying Goodbye to Mac Linda, Jerry and Toby lost a buddy in 2008. Toby Joins the Pack A new dog came into Linda's life in 2007. Duggan: in memoriam Ten great years as a travel companion. "The Westie's Nightly Game" Linda's poem dedicated to Duggan. Riley The neighbor-dog has moved. back to top Cosmo!
Linda writes: When we lost Mac in December, I immediately notified Westie Rescue, Inc., where we’d gotten him 15 years ago, and asked for a young dog as a companion to our Toby, now 3. We thought we might have to take a "special needs" dog, and were willing to consider it, but we did want a younger dog. We’d also been looking at the pet ads in the local paper, calling Westie breeders (until we decided we just didn’t want to train a puppy), and visiting the local animal shelter. Then we got a call that Westie Rescue Colorado had Cosmo, a 3-year-old male with no problems whatsoever. (They do a complete medical check on all dogs they take in.) Cosmo was surrendered by his loving family-- no reason given. He was so matted that he had to be shaved and he was also terribly skinny, but his health seems to be perfect. When the Westie Rescue person started looking for someone to bring Cosmo to us, she remembered one woman saying she was from South Dakota. So she called her-- and the lady was planning a trip to SD that weekend. When the Westie Rescue lady said she had a dog she'd like delivered to "a writer in Hermosa" the former South Dakotan, Becky, said, "Oh my gosh-- is that Linda Hasselstrom by any chance?" It turned out Becky had studied my work at SD State University. Becky and her car full of children very kindly delivered the dog to us at the gas station in Hermosa. She now has a couple more Hasselstrom books to read, and I promised those kids I'd send some photos of Cosmo in his new home. So we’ve been working on incorporating Cosmo into the family. He already knows how to sleep on beds. We walked him on the leash at first, introducing him to cattle-- at a distance-- and teaching him that they are not for chasing. Toby is delighted, after his years with slow Mac, to have another dog to play with, and I’m having fun throwing balls and chew toys. back to top 
Hey, Lady! That's One Funny-Looking Baby.
Linda, Jerry and the dogs enjoyed long walks on the Oregon beach during their vacation in 2008. When he became tired out, Mac rode in the stroller and enjoyed all the attention he received from passers-by.
Saying Goodbye to Mac
Linda writes: We’d started telling everyone that Mac was the oldest living Westie. If you accept the idea that 1 year in a human’s life is 7 in dog years, Mac was about 119. When we walked-- three times a day-- we’d walk as slowly as we could. But Jerry and I would start visiting and Toby would start exploring, and when the three of us got to the bottom of the hill we’d look back, and see Mac still at the top, marching alone, unhurried. His appetite was good, and though he slept a lot, he also was eager to charge outside with Toby and compete in marking territory. When Toby chased a rabbit, Mac’s ears came up and he yipped in excitement and trotted along behind. Then one day when we’d been to town and hadn’t had the usual walks, Jerry let me and the two dogs out of the pickup at the bottom of the hill so we could walk to the top. Mac walked a few steps and stopped. When I picked him up, he shrieked, so I had to carry him to the top of the hill. After that, he couldn’t seem to raise his head above the level of his back. We took him to the vet, and got various medications, then spent several more days trying to assess the situation. Finally, on December 16, 2008, we decided he was so tired and sick that it was cruel to make him go on. Jerry held him in his arms, and I held Toby next to them on the table, but Mac was sleeping so deeply he may have been almost gone by the time the euthanasia shot took effect. Toby seems to understand that his pal is gone, but he is lonely, and hates having me and Jerry out of sight. We are looking for an adult Westie to be his buddy. back to top Toby Joins the Pack
Did I say I was hoping for an older, quiet Westie? Well, that's not what I got, and I am lucky. I don't feel that I can disclose Toby's story, but he seems to be about a year and a half old, and has probably spent a considerable portion of his life in a crate to protect him from larger dogs. I got Toby from Westie Rescue, and I heartily recommend that if you want a specific breed of dog, or even if you don't know what you want, you look for these rescue organizations. The dedication and zeal of the people who voluntarily save dogs from abuse is terrific, and the costs to adopt such a dog are as cheap as they can manage. (I've already served as a stop on the Westie Underground Railway to take a Westie in need from a home where he could no longer stay to rescuers who are getting him medical attention and finding a new home.) 
Linda and Toby, home on the range, 2008
photo by Jerry Ellerman, P.E.
Toby continued--
Toby arrived with his leg in a cast, and hopped around the house for a couple of weeks. Taking a Westie out for a walk with his leg in a cast seems to bring out the Protector in a lot of folks, who march right up and demand to know what you did to that poor cute little dog? The terrier knows how to go quietly into a crate and stay there, but he doesn't care for it. He'd rather run around the yard sixteen times with a couple of loops around Mac. When I start up the stairs, Toby races up ahead of me, and is waiting on the windowsill of my study when I sit down. He loves big dogs, having been fostered with a Briard for a week, and tries to zing over to talk to any large dog he sees. And he's incredibly affectionate. I teased Duggan about being aloof-- he would stay on my pillow until I went to sleep, and then go downstairs to the couch. Toby flops onto my pillow and stays right there, demanding just a lii-iiiittle more room each time I roll over. He'd really like to be on my lap all day, but I get cramps in my wrist trying to type around him. Still, he doesn't seem to know much about toys or playing, and it's been fun introducing him to new things-- stuffed animals that squeak, the stuffed Kong, the tug rope. He's brought laughter back to our house. Mac, a 14-year-old Westie also rescued from an unsatisfactory home, was enjoying being the Only Dog, but he has adjusted with his characteristic charm and aplomb to the new situation. When Toby bops him with a stuffed bunny once too often, he growls a little and retreats to his own chair for a little peace and quiet. back to top 
Linda and Duggan at Windbreak House in 2005
Duggan, Linda's canine companion for the past ten years, died peacefully at home in Cheyenne on the Winter Solstice, 2006.
Linda acquired Duggan in November, 1996, while driving on a speaking tour across eastern SD and into Minnesota. This was the infamous winter trip when Linda hit some black ice and rolled her Ford Bronco. Happily, Linda was uninjured and she had not yet picked up Duggan. (Showing her dedication to the job, Linda rented a car and completed her speaking tour, though from then on she seldom scheduled winter trips.) Many Windbreak House guests will remember Duggan, who often travelled with Linda. He loved attention and appears in many photographs in the Windbreak House albums. Each time he came back to the house, he marched directly to the cupboard in Linda's bathroom, inserted his pointy nose behind the door, slammed it back, and looked over his stuffed toys before selecting one to drag back to Linda's bedroom to play with. After Duggan had convulsions during a retreat in June, 2006, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. An operation to remove some of the diseased pancrease disclosed that his liver was also cancerous. Linda left him in Cheyenne for a July retreat, and came back to find him too weak to greet her at the door. "I told him if he wanted to live, he had to give us a sign that night, or in the morning we would put him to sleep," she says. And within a few minutes he started to take a little food from her fingers. After that, Linda only once left him alone for more than a couple of hours. The day before he died, he bounced along the fence barking at the neighbor's dogs, followed an interesting trail down to the edge of the lake and wanted to go into a drainage pipe after it on his traditional evening walk at the park, and ate heartily. "But after he chased the neighbor dogs, he stopped and got a strange look on his face, laid his ears back as though he was in pain," Linda says. "I told him he should go when he needed to, and to look for a big guy with long hair, and two Westies" -- Linda's husband George, who died in 1988, and their Westies Cuchulain and Frodo. "I wrapped him in a blanket and sat beside him on the couch." Duggan was cremated (along with his stuffed animal toys) and his ashes were scattered on the ranch, near Cuchulain's grave. Linda is hoping to find an older Westie to keep her 15-year-old Mac company. back to top The Westie's Nightly Game
Linda writes of this poem: "I always feared Duggan's life would be shorter than normal, and had written this poem to try to exorcise that idea. It was published in the spring of 2006, just before he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer." The Westie's Nightly Game --For Duggan The mangled purple ball bounces off the planks, smacks the little white dog's nose. He shakes his head, dives behind the hollyhocks, bites and brings it back, his plumy tail waving. I kick again. Thwack and bite and back again. His pink tongue dangles. He's not building equity, or obsessed with hair loss; he hasn't noticed the drug dealers moving in next door; doesn't care how much our taxes have gone up this year. On the street in front of the house, folks rev their engines, heading home. Work day over, people honk, curse, squeal their brakes. Every dog on the block barks and barks. Kick, thump, slap. The Westie grins and runs. Linda M. Hasselstrom Summer 2005 Accepted by The Bare Root Review, Marshall, MN, published online February, 2006 back to top Riley, the Neighbor-Dog
Through the years many Windbreak House Retreat guests have come to know Riley, the neighbor-dog, who often trotted up the driveway to Windbreak House looking for companionship and table scraps. Riley frequently accompanied hikers out onto the prairie, though her tastes ran more to mud puddles and bunny hunts. 
Who could resist that face?
Riley was a puppy in the Rapid City Humane Society Shelter in 1994. Her photo appeared in the local paper as the "Pet of the Week," finding her a good home.
In March, 2007, Riley, along with about a dozen cats and her human family-- who rented Homestead House for many years-- moved to a new ranch home some miles north of Hermosa. Homestead House became the new residential retreat house in 2008 when Linda, Jerry, and the dogs moved back to live full-time in Windbreak House. back to top |
