To All the Dogs I've Loved Before (Part 4) Casey Mae

It’s been a minute since I last added to my loved dogs series, so I figured now is as good a time as any. The next dog in the lineup is Casey Mae, my beautiful, life-changing Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever.

Because she was life-changing, and because I’d just started my blog during her later years, she was featured in several of my early posts, which you can read here, here, and here. If you’re looking for a lengthy story on her battle with cancer, I journaled it here.

“… today, I feel like she has dragged me back into the light. She was always in the light, and for that I am eternally grateful.”

Because it’s still hard to write about her without tears, I’m simply going to add a short bit to all the pieces I’ve already written. You see, I’ve come to recognize her impact on me far more fully than I did even at the time of her death five years ago.

Why is that? Simply put, I’m no longer the person I was when she first came into my life. As a puppy, her seriousness and focus made me uncomfortable. Remember, Molly and Josie came before her, and neither of them exhibited seriousness and focus.

Casey Mae, or CM as she was known more informally, was my introduction to the world of pure-bred dogs. She was also the first dog that seemed capable of doing some of the sports I’d attempted previously with the other two. After abandoning conformation (see my prior post about that), we trained and competed in all sorts of dog sports - agility, flyball, obedience, field, and even lure coursing (a sport where a dog can earn a title by chasing a plastic bag).

Thus began a chapter in my life where I expended an inordinate amount of energy chasing what I’ve now come to learn is external validation. I was desperate to prove myself to people who, in the end, probably didn’t care one way or another about how good I was at any of those dog sports. Or maybe they did. I remember lots of people wanting to be my Facebook friend after we earned our first Master Agility Championship. I remember wondering: was I finally worthy of their attention?

I spent a lot of time in the land of comparison, envy, and arrogance.

It’s a place where I now make every effort to not return.

With the advantage of hindsight, I fully embrace the shock to my system her cancer diagnosis provided in 2014, because it forced me to take a break from that relentless treadmill we’d been on. That, plus an involuntary transfer at work, forced me to reevaluate a number of things and try to figure out a path forward mentally and emotionally.

Most people had no idea.

CM steadied me in ways that were mostly unappreciated at the time, but now are crystal clear. She endured my crappy, impatient training, my anxiety every time we stepped to the line at some performance event, and the cancer that would ultimately take her from me before I was ready to let her go.

Dogs can do that for us, if we allow ourselves to let them. More than all the ribbons and titles she left behind, my memories of CM’s resilience are her lasting legacy.

*****

This post is short, but you will find more of CM throughout my writing. I’m excited to say she’s featured in my forthcoming book Crossing 51: Not Quite a Memoir, which you can find out more about here. I’ve also started writing my next book, which is partly about our rollicking road trip to the National Agility Championships in 2012, in which she has a starring role!