Phoenix

Yesterday our beautiful, glorious, wonderful, frustrating, slightly nuts, badly missed, much much much loved Phoenix died. She was 14 years and 6 months old. Arthritis in her rear legs, finally meant that her front legs could no longer take the strain of pulling her upright and she was struggling to get outside, to get to her drink bucket and generally to make herself comfortable.


In the last 12 months of her life - even before we shifted house and home, her movement was getting more and more restricted, and I'm sure people who only met her later in her life thought we were slightly exaggerating her feats as a youngster. But Phoenix was our Houdini dog. She could climb chain wire fences, she could break open gates that I struggled to push open, she could wiggle out of holes and gaps that Clancy would think twice about attempting. She could leap into the air from a lying start and snatch a Rosella flying past (I had to apologise to the hawks and eagles in the Dandenongs - I'd been cursing them for the fly by kills until I finally caught Phoenix doing it and persuaded her that if she did it again she'd be in more trouble....) And she stopped.

But she was a glorious creature - nicknamed the Killer Queen (dynamite on a rat nest), the Bitchkrieg (what coffee table / what do you mean I just walked through a door - what door????), and Fluffybutt, she was alternately a nightmare and a joy. For years all we ever saw of her was the sight of her rear-end. Just in front of me as I chased her up the road - she didn't run, just walked slightly too fast for me to catch up with her, the sight of her rear end as she climbed the chain mesh fence to go visit Fiona next door (screaming the whole way), the sight of her rear end as it shot out the puppy door because somebody looked at her. She's the only one of our dogs that to get a cuddle with her you had to approach her backwards so she didn't see you looking at her.

And the wrestling matches for brush time - she hated brush time. She didn't mind bath time, especially if it came with a hose that she could bite at (made the bathing bit just a tad tricky) - but the sight of Adam dancing around on his tip toes in the paddling pool trying to wash this enormous big hairy bitey rug....

She loved her paddling pool - she was most impressed to find the new place had a dam, but alas a little to frail to take much advantage. But we had bought her a paddling pool many Christmases ago and I'm not afraid to admit spent a fair amount of time sitting in it with her in the stinking hot (and slightly smelly) summers.

And she loved going for long long rambles through the hills with Fiona. Quite a few times I'd be driving back home from somewhere and think to myself, that's a pretty German Shepherd, that's my German Shepherd - and she and Fiona would be miles from home and just ambling along. She was a great dog to take for a walk - didn't matter what anybody or anything else much did, she was oblivious. Phoenix lived her life and everybody else ... well if it's not dinner time, don't bore her with the details.

Mostly she was good company, she didn't demand cuddles or attention much (until this last six months when she found that a bit of a whinge would mean that somebody would come with the water bucket or a tablet wrapped up in a buttery treat - which she kind of got to like), but mostly, as she got older and the cold got to her a bit, she'd wander in, plump down on one of her bed choices, and she'd just be there. And now she's not and we miss her dreadfully.

2 comments

Comment from: Jude [Visitor]
Jude

So sorry to hear that Phoenix has passed away, she was a lady too the end always glad to see you and I will also miss her when next visiting again so sorry

14/11/09 @ 23:08
Comment from: [Member]
KC

Thanks Jude - it wasn’t our finest week - we miss her dreadfully still - such a quiet girl in her old age.

19/11/09 @ 17:51


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