Chance

     Late in the middle of the night and very early this morning I walked our property looking for our old blind Sheltie dog Chance. Him and Maggie went out around 9:30 last light for their last potty break before bed and he is always the first one back. But not last night. I had already dropped off to sleep when dad woke me up to tell me he had been out looking for him for a few hours. I got up and got dressed and went out walking and calling to see if I could find him. Nothing. Dad even drove down to the road twice. We both got up several times in the night to see if he was at the front door. See most times he never goes much farther than the barn and we have to call him to get back to the porch sometimes when he gets  disoriented. He had a bad habit of running into things or getting behind things and not get to the house. He always barked when he was ready to come in. The only thing we found last night was a huge opossum on the freeze looking to eat his nightly cat food. He looked at us like we were crazy being out at that time catching him raiding the food bowl. 

     Chance has been with us for so many years I can’t remember for sure when he came to us. We got him from a friend, his daughter had a girlfriend who owned him and he had jumped out a window and broke his back leg. Our friend had got him sometime after that but no one had ever taken him to the vet so his leg healed crooked. We were asked if we would take him in because they were not allowed to have dogs. We took him to have a checkup and the vet said that he couldn’t do anything at this point for his leg but cut it off. We said it would be cruel. He said is could live with it that way. Well he was like any other dog, he never noticed it was crooked and he never missed a beat. He ran and chased and played just like nothing had ever happened. 

    

     Chance was always at our bedside every night and he was my protector. Maggie his buddy on the other hand always wanted to sleep in the bed. She is an Aussie and she doesn’t bark often or seldom if that. Chance barked at thunder and any gun shot or noise. He knew when we were driving up the drive and always greeted us at the door if he was in the main part of the house but his domain was our bedroom. It will be sad not to have to trip over him in the middle of the night when I get up to go to the bathroom, or watch him skitter down the drive to the barn as he went to work every day. He knew when we said it was time to go to work what his job was. He loved going down to make sure the pigs and goats were all safe even if he couldn’t see much of them. His nose was always so sharp. He drove Chloe and Jacob crazy when he came down  they always wanted to head butt him for getting too close.
      I hope that where ever he went he didn’t suffer if he never comes back home.  He has been a very good farm dog all these years. Now I worry about when Maggie’s time will be because they were such close buddies. She is getting older too. She is my girl. Our dogs are our family and it will be sad around here for a while and Chance will be missed greatly.