Ranger, My Love

Thursday, July 06, 2023

Yesterday, I said goodbye to twelve-year-old Ranger, my Treeing Walker Coonhound. He was one of my best friends ever. I spent last night recalling our adventures together, and today woke up feeling the heavy loss of his nearby presence.

Today’s header photo shows Ranger shortly after he appeared on my street as a young stray, frightened and needy. When I called the pup, he bellied toward me. I popped him into my vehicle and drove to a veterinarian friend. She guessed him at four months old and didn’t find a microchip. The puppy’s eyes never left me, and she said, “He’s made you his person.” She was correct, and that never changed. I was happy that my ad about a stray puppy ran without any responses.

During his puppy years, Ranger was a handful. The nuisance chewed and destroyed most of the furniture on my deck. Also, he was somewhat timid of other dogs and sometimes tried offsetting that by bullying but never pursued or fought.

Throughout most of Ranger’s years, he was my horseback buddy. On trails, there were some especially wonderful things about him. Although a hound, he had a “cold nose” and never left me to go hunting game. Whenever he got too far ahead to see my horse following, he backtracked and checked to self-reassure that I was coming. Also very cool was that Ranger could find very old trails, overgrown and invisible. If I felt somewhat lost, a good gamble was having my horse simply follow Ranger.

Dear Friends: R.I.P., my finest companion through some of my best years. Diana