Abbey Gail Dec 3, 2000- May 17, 20016
My darling sweet Abbey. My heart is broke. You were never a dog, you were always a human with fur. I remember the arguments that Abbey had with Bj about watching the cooking channel at the office in CO. Abbey said cooking channel was stupid and put on something cool like Animal Planet. She loved to watch me cook but on TV they never drop anything so cooking shows were boring!!
Abbey would express her happiness at watching certain TV shows and commercials. She went mental over cat commercials….and a good footie match on TV. oh my. I remember the afternoon we had on a football match (soccer for you Yanks), and they kicked the ball from one end of the field to the other. This meant the ball went from one end of the screen to the other and Abbey was behind the TV trying to find that darn ball. She has turned off the TV numerous times in her excitement and jumping up at the TV. She had a special video tape we made for her. It had 15 minutes of football, 15 minuets of animal planet, 15 minutes of football, and so on. She would take that with her to Granny and Granda’s house and watch it with Granda all the time we were gone on any trips. Funny but she had Granda trained well. She would sit all pretty in front of the TV and stare at the blank screen. Heave a big sigh and look over her shoulder at Granda, turn and stare at the blank screen. She would repeat this until Granda turned on the TV and popped in her tape. She mae be daft, but she was nae feel.
And yes she would bark at the cows on the TV even if they were the cartoon laughing cows as she was smart enough to KNOW they were those HORRID COWS!!! and they must go. She barked at the Cow statue at Country Dairy, the laughing cow cartoon TV cows, the cows out on the range in CO as we traveled all over, and even the mere mention of cows or if I spelled C-O-Ws…even that she knew. She did NOT like cows!! she said they were mean and hurt mama. That would be when the Highland Cattle that we had briefly…well one of the cows came after me and kicked me. Abbey never forgave the entire species of cows for that, not even once.
Abbey was a red tri color….red, cream, and white…border collie. She is a proper Scottish border collie, born and raised in the highlands of Scotland. Hoof and Mouth was rampant when Abbey was first born and no one was allowed to the farms until things had cleared up. By that time Abby was already 4 months old. We were looking for an 8 week old puppy and the farmer did have two litters available. One litter was 2 months old and one was 4 months old. We looked at both litters and had one from each chosen, both having the same markings and coloring. I was drawn to the younger litter. We walked into the farmers kitchen where the pups were not allowed and Abbey walked right in as if she knew where to go. She walked under my chair and laid down. She chose me and it was settled. We took her home. Later we found out that the farmer, who was not home when we chose the pup, told his wife that he had wanted to keep that pup.
Abbey was all about work. She took her job of taking care of us seriously. She came into the house and took over the role of head dog even though Tessa was 18 months old. Abbey was the boss of the Scottish border collies until the day she passed. She moved with us from Scotland, to Colorado, to Michigan.
We did breed her one time and she had 6 pups. One pup we kept, Cinnamon, who is similar in build to Abbey. She is nothing like her in color as Cinnamon is a blue Merle, but she is super smart like Abbey. Cinnamon was very bonded to Abbey and it has been hard on her with Abbey gone.
The last day that we had together was a lovely day here in Michigan. I was planting flowers and plants in various parts of the yard and Abbey was wandering around with me. She would not settle down and kept pacing so I was always trying to find her. Finally she did lay down and rested in the grass at the back of the house by the gazebo. I was planting some flowers there for a while and pulling some weeds. I decided I had enough and since Abbey seemed calm, I put my tools away and got out a pillow from the gazebo. I put the pillow on the ground by Abbey and laid on the grass with my head on the pillow. I stretched my arm out in front of me and Abbey laid her head over my arm in my hand. It was breezy and the wind chimes were singing by our heads as we laid there soaking up the sun bits coming through the tree tops. It was peaceful and wonderful and horrible all at the same time as we only had that half hour before we had to go to the vet to let her go. How can my heart be so filled with joy and so broken and full of tears at the same time?
Charlie had dug Abbey’s final resting place before we left and I showed it to Abbey and told her it would be her new bed for her tired worn out fur. I told her that SHE would be free to play and romp with BJ who passed on three years prior and that her fur would sleep here. I told her that I would plant some flowers by her head and we trimmed up the tree branches so that we could place a glider underneath to sit. I hung some bells and a few chimes on the big pine boughs and call them Abbey’s bells which I have to ring every time I go out to see her. She chose to have Charlie put her final place next to Rowan on the one end and he had passed on 4 days prior. She knew it was time but she did NOT want to leave us. Her heart had developed a serious murmur a year prior, she was having difficulties walking and in severe pain every day…yet she did NOT want to go. She was 15.5 years old and will be missed more than I can ever say. I am sad when any of my animals die, but Abbey is the first of those that I just can not bear.
