MEMPHIS

          MY GIRL MEMPHIS

           12/10/99 - 9/16/13

A new era in my adult life came my way yesterday - one that I, with determined reluctance accepted. I closed my eyes and turned my head away and consented to the euthanasia of the last remaining member of my original sled dog team. Where once a mouthy, rambunctious competitive, harnessed dog stood, there was an old gray girl, thin of stature, sight and hearing. She had no incurable disease or malady. She was just old and tired.

They talk of dogs being "honest dogs" - those are the best kind they say. Dogs that will run the life out of themselves for you. Dogs who never complain to you. Dogs who would rather not eat or drink than miss a minute on the trail with you. Dogs who just don't know when the pain is too big, too much and it's time to stop. Dogs who, no matter how old and thin and blind and deaf, they just keep living for you. Memphis was like that - Memphis was an honest dog.

She came to me as a 4-year old -shy and scared of men and just about everything else (rustling leaves, shadows, crows over head...). I was her 4th owner in those 4 years. She was born to a dog named Kat, sired by a male named Pepe. Both fine competitive, proven canines owned by a renowned Montana musher and 4-time Iditarod winner, Doug Swingley, who as I understand it, never really took to her. As a 2-year old she was sold to another male musher somewhere in Northern MN, who...never really took to her. She moved to a kennel owned by a local UP musher, Kelly Engle, who sold her to me - and it was here in her 4th year, her 4th kennel and in my heart she a found a home, a safe place to stay for as long as she lived.

She certainly had a life story so long and curious to tell that pages and pages would fill with but a breath of passing time (I should have such a remarkable story at the end of MY days).

I loved her during her years with me and I will love her memory for as long as mine allows for it.