She was old and had to hop when she ran, but she never complained and was faithful to the end.
Phoebe came to me and my girlfriend at the time,
Marcia, on December 9, 1995. We acquired her from a co-worker in
the Attorney General's Office, Camille Nohe. Camille only had her
three days, and Phoebe was too high-strung for Camille to handle.
Her name was Charlie at the time.
Phoebe was skittish as hell when we got her.
She had only been around women for most of her young life, and had no
use for men. I wondered if she was abused by a man. For
about the first three or four weeks we had her, she would constantly
bark at me for no apparent reason. She was so flaky, when we
picked out a new name for her, it was really "Phobia." However,
the t.v. show "Friends" was popular at the time, and Marcia and I
thought "Charlie" was somewhat flaky like the Phoebe character on
friends, so her name became Phobia Vandyke Tacha-Knoll (Phoebe).
After Phoebe got over her fear of me, we had some
great times together. I would take her on long walks, and after
she learned to mind me, I would let her off her leash to run free in
the nearby school yard. She would dash away at top speed, but was
very obedient and would stop dead in her tracks and come back if I told
her too. She was too smart for her own good. I'll never
forget the day she opened a door with a doorknob. She also got so
good about getting out of any enclosure we tried to contain her in that
she earned the nickname "Houdini."
After Phoebe grazed on my prized corn and tomatoes
in the garden one year, I decided to try to pen her up. I bought
one of those electric fences you bury in the ground with an audible and
shock collar that was supposed to keep her inside the boundary. I
put up the little flags where the fence would go, and walked Phoebe
around it for three weeks or so. She was very obedient about
staying in the boundary, so I commenced to burying the fence. I
dug a little trench with my gas edger and was about halfway through
burying the wire when I turned around and saw Phoebe running across the
yard with the end of the wire. She had dug up all the wire I
buried, so I had to put her in the house and start over. Once I
got it buried and tested it, it was time to try to test it on
Phoebe. As she neared the boundary she would blow right past
it. I could hear the audible warning going off, but Phoebe's
thick coat keep the shock probes at bay, so the fence had no effect on
her. Rather than shave her neck every few weeks, I came up with
another plan - chain link.
I dug up the electric wire, and replaced it with a
four foot chain link fence. I poured a concrete pad in the corner
and built Phoebe a nice, insulated doghouse painted to match the house
and placed it on the pad. Of course, she wouldn't go in the
house. She would lay on top of it Snoopy like, or use it to jump
over the fence and raid the garden. An electric fence wire one
foot higher than the fence finally managed to keep her in.
Phoebe seemed lonely, so we got her a playmate,
Molly, a Golden Retriever. The day Molly arrived (October 20,
1996), we had a freak thunder snow storm dumping 12 inches of
snow. A large tree overhanging the dog pen still had its leaves
on it, and a large branch fell onto the pen and doghouse. I don't
know if Phoebe was on top at the time, but she seemed no worse for the
wear. Molly however, was in the doghouse shaking like a
leaf. They both got to sleep inside the house that night. I
still
remember Molly and Phoebe running back and forth in their pen pushing
their stainless steel dog bowls around like hockey pucks.
They had a great time together.
After Phoebe and Molly moved with me to the Knoll
acre in October 2000, other dogs started arriving and filling out the
pack. With Phoebe clearly in charge as the alpha female, she started
showing some aggression I hadn't seen before. Once a Schwan's man
stepped towards me with a pen in his hand. Phoebe stopped him
with two paws to his chest and a vicious growl. She didn't bite
him, but I'm sure he had to clean his drawers afterwards. Phoebe
and the others also started attacking Molly for no apparent
reason. Molly has always been very docile, and she didn't fit in
well with the pack. My wife Kim and I started having to keep
Molly separated from the pack.
As Phoebe got older, she developed hip displaysia
and the vet also advised that she had torn a ligament in one or both
back legs in the past. It didn't slow her down much. She
still ran with the pack, but it looked more like she was hopping than
running. Around the time she turned twelve, I kept thinking she
wouldn't last much longer. I would get sad around the holidays,
thinking it would be Phoebe's last Christmas. Amazingly, she kept
on going.
After Christmas 2008, she seemed to start slowing
down a little. She would come in the house and lay on her bed,
fighting to get comfortable. Once she did get comfortable, she
would zonk out and almost nothing, not even nature calling, would wake
her up. She must have lost most of her hearing because yelling
wouldn't wake her up. Once you laid a hand on her, though, she
would instantly wake up, very startled.
On her last night, I woke her up and she went out
in the back yard for about 10 minutes. It was a cold night, with
temperatures in the low teens and wind chills in the low 10s.
When I opened the back door, she came running from across the
yard. As I sat reading my email, she came into the office and
stuck her head in the corner of the room, whining. She had the
dry heaves and I wondered if she had eaten something she shouldn't
have. We tried to comfort her and get her to lay down, but she
kept getting up, wandering around the house and taking small drinks of
water. I called the vet at about 2 a.m., and he suggested some
cottage cheese. We did not have any, so she got a
small piece of cheese with some pepto-bismol in it. That seemed
to bring her some relief. She laid down and went to sleep after a
while. The next morning I headed out at about 0645. She
seemed fine, and raised her head and looked at me. I petted her,
and headed to work. About the time I got to Kansas City, Kim
called my cell phone and told me Phoebe was dead. Kim said she
seemed fine when she got in the shower, but when she got out, Phoebe
had her legs straight out and had labored breathing. Kim laid
down with
her, and Phoebe died in her arms.
I know that she is now running
like her old self, with no pain and no hopping, pushing her dog bowl
around like a hockey puck. She will be sorely
missed. God Bless you, Phoebe. Say hello to Willy and Sally for
me.
