The real problem with getting older isnt so much that your body no longer cooperates with you well, it is more that the same thing is happening to those you love. My beloved Terra, my shadow, fuzzy snuggle at night, my guard and companion for almost 19 years left today. She hasnt been able toe well for a couple of years, but that didnt stop her. She would follow my voice to stand near me. She hasnt been able to jump up onto the bed for even longer and we arranged a bed for her next to mine because I was afraid that she might fall off and hurt herself. She taught me so much about courage, faith and hope. She was the terror of the police and army on the road to Sharm because she was so tiny she could comfortably sit on my lap as I drove the jeep down and when theyd lean in towards the window to ask where I was going a fierce little snarl would move them right back out of my personal space. Sure she was the size of a cat, but she didnt know that and they didnt want to find out how far her delusions would carry her. For a tiny dog, she had a HUGE personality. Both my husband and I looked at her a bit askance when I brought her home from Amsterdam. We were both big dog people and this 5 kg creature with ears the size of a bat strolled into our house and pack of three baladi dogs without a backwards glance and just took charge. It was pretty awe-inspiring. She was pregnant with her first litter when she came, Eco, Geo and Captain Planet (aka, Captain), and when she was weaning her babies, the kids and I had driven down to Sharm for a week only to find that a pair of rats had moved into the laundry room there. Diaa and I had gotten the dogs to deal with rats that were chewing computer cables at National Stevedoring in Dekhela, so he said hed fly down to Sharm with her and we could see her rat hunting skills. He had his own plane and walked Terra out through the airport on a lead, up the stairs and into the cockpit of his Beechcraft where she settled into the copilots seat as though she owned it. She slept all the way down, probably happy to be away for a bit from the demands of her sons, and waltzed into our house without a care in the world. We showed her the laundry room, rousted the rats when they tried to run behind the drier, and in less than a minute shed solved the rat problem. We knew that we were onto something with our rat terriorists. Over the next five years we bred about 30 dogs at Ratbusters, as we called the program to develop rat hunting packs. The best were kept for hunting or breeding, while others went to families who loved them. When my husband died, his brother took over management of NSC, some idiot wrote an article claiming that the government had paid 250 thousand LE for the dogs and were paying 10 thousand LE per month for food . Even though this was utter rubbish since the dogs working at NSC belonged to me personally, we paid all their expenses and NSC only paid the handlers who helped the dogs hunt, he sent me all the dogs at NSC. At one point, I had 24 of these adorable creatures underfoot until with the help of friends like Mohamed Sirag, we found good homes for many of them...but I still had about a dozen when I first moved to Al Sorat Farm, firmly led by the mighty midget Terra. Ten years along I have only five now that the abuela Terra is gone. I still have her 17 year old daughter Ginger, her 16 year old daughters Pixel and Misu, and her 10 tear old grandchildren Buffy and Demon, who if they are like their grandmother could out live me. My ever-sensible daughter has decreed that larger dogs with shorter lifespans are more appropriate for older ladies.
Posted on: Sat, 02 Aug 2014 11:48:00 +0000
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