Ours was a friendship lower quick by a thriller. Decades later, I nonetheless miss that border collie
Now that I’ve dogs of my very own, it appears disloyal to write down about how a lot I cherished Glenn. He wasn’t even my pet, strictly talking: he lived with my neighbour, a German who had moved to the identical nook of japanese France. But we have been miles from city and sometimes shared necessities: eggs, espresso, chainsaws, dogs. Peter gave me a lead, for the occasions Glenn came visiting, and taught me basic instructions, equivalent to “Komm!” and “Sitz!”.
It suited all of us. Glenn, named after the American band chief Glenn Miller, was a giant border collie – 4 or 5 years outdated after we met, bursting with power, and often in want of distraction. We lived down a dirt track in the Vosges mountains, and there was little for Glenn to do besides guard Peter’s chickens. He didn’t have a lot of a piece ethic, latching on to passing ramblers and following them for so long as they’d let him, or till he scented one thing extra fascinating. He as soon as trailed a household of strangers all the way in which to their vacation home, two or three hours away, at which level the grumbling father loaded him into his automobile to drive him again. It was the one option to do away with him.
I cherished to walk and cherished firm, as long as that company didn’t want to chat. One of the explanations I had gone to the Vosges within the 00s was to get away from all that yapping. The two of us would head off for 5 or 6 hours, by means of spruce forests, previous waterfalls, uphill, downhill, come solar, rain and snow. We would not often see one other human.
Glenn would often come once I known as, and when he wasn’t scouting for deer or boars, I’d throw a stick for him – so many occasions that my arms drained lengthy earlier than his legs did. I’d cowl 20-25km on a superb day, and he should have carried out twice that. When he wasn’t working, he was barking. Often it was at water: he adored smashing his entrance paws up and down in streams and puddles, woofing his empty head off.
He was … enjoyable doesn’t cowl it. Sweet? He wasn’t an advanced canine – I’ve two Romanian rescues now, each of whom had troublesome puppyhoods, and I do know doggie angst once I see it – however he was a superb boy. An excellent soul.
What occurred to Glenn? We can solely guess. I took a visit, and once I got here again he was lacking. I prefer to assume he adopted a stranger, they assumed he was a stray they usually took him in and gave him a contented life. I fear that possibly a farmer shot him as a result of he was bothering their cows, or that he adopted a stream underground and received caught.
Sometimes, out walking once more, I’d see a border collie barking behind a fence, or chained up in a yard, and assume: ‘Is that …? Could that be …?” But, at a distance, one border collie seems loads like the following. Eventually, I gave Peter his lead again.
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