"Desi" Manson
Born ~June 1999, Tyndall, Manitoba.
Adopted from the Winnipeg Humane Society in August 2002.
Died of small-cell lymphoma in February 2006.
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I discovered Desi at the Winnipeg Humane Society when I was a volunteer dog-walker. He tricked me by walking along perfectly on our first meeting, but he was a bit of a mess and quite out of sorts. It was love at first sight. The decision to finally adopt a pooch was made in short order, and he came home with me the next day. His temperament was Border Collie (or Australian Shepherd?) through-and-through. He has even occasionally done the typical herding stance and given strangers "the eye" - meaning: "Just a sec, I think I want to herd you." He wants to chase anything and everything that moves though: squirrels, bikes, joggers, walkers...diesel engines...the list goes on...my friends call him the "A-D-D-Dog" - there's nothing wrong with a little attention deficit disorder to keep us all on our toes! |
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Discipline...at its best... |
| Desi came with a few challenges. He had been
with the same person/family for the first three years of his life. They
had brought him in with the standard story that they were moving into
an apartment and couldn't keep him. He had been restricted to two rooms
in the house, and was paper-trained. He was left alone for long periods
of time. When he went outside he was left on a chain in the yard. It
took a few weeks to get him house-trained, and he couldn't do stairs.
He was also kind of nervous on our walks, like he didn't quite know
what was going on. He wouldn't lift his leg, he would just suddenly
pee as he was walking. |
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Lounging in the grass on Garfield Street in Winnipeg. |
| For those first few months I never saw him close his eyes. He wouldn't come upstairs to the bedroom, and he never sat still when we were with him. He couldn't master the basement stairs either, so he hung out on the main floor. It was literally six months before he would even attempt the basement stairs, and then a few more weeks before he mastered the steep staircase up to the bedroom. He is still a little nervous with some stairs, although at the house in Kingston he had to get used to a bunch of them, particularly off the deck to the backyard. He was very particular about the amount of snow he was willing to brave back there. |
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Phew! Tuckered out after a long day's drive to Montana, Dec 2002. |
| While he never chased a ball or played fetch,
this pooch nonetheless had a long list of his favourite activities and
games. He loved to ride in the truck, and was a great traveller...once
we could get out of the city and its distractions (bikes, joggers, etc.).
He loved his walks and would bound through the bush when we went for
a hike. He chased frogs, snakes, bugs and wabbits...and deer...but he
never actually caught anything...although there was a mysterious black
squirrel death one day in the yard in Kingston...but we don't like to
talk about that (must have fallen off the fence into his reach is the
only explanation!). We played a game called "I'm gonna getcha"
- where he would run in circles with zigs and zags while you try to
catch him or give him a whack on the butt as he sails by. He was also
a big suck - and was always near his mommas...oh, and he loved playing
with his two little live toys: the cats. |
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Desi at Snuggler's Notch, Stowe, Vermont. This picture taken just before we realized that he was sick. |
| Desi gave his momma a pretty bad scare one spring when the creek was thawing out. The beavers were out of hibernation and playing in the newly-exposed water in the middle of the creek. Just as I was thinking: "Oh, how nice, the beavers are out again," I saw Desi take off in a flash. Once he gets his mind on something, there is no calling him back. He darted out across the thin ice and didn't realize that there was open water until he hit it with a splash. The beavers forgotten, he started treading water out there and latched his two front paws into the ice, but he couldn't pull himself out. He was 20ft from the creek banks and the ice was too thin for me to attempt, even on my belly. I started freaking. Rope? No, that wouldn't work. Does somebody have a boat or a canoe in their backyard? Maybe, but where? Desi started whining in the frigid water. I ran down the creek and tried to get him to swim towards me, but he wouldn't let go of the ice. The creek was open water all the way to the edge farther downstream, near the culvert, but he wouldn't swim to me as I stood on the bank calling him. I would have to wade in. I shed my coat and stepped into the water. When it's that cold it takes your breath away. I waded in to my waist and out towards the middle of the creek where Desi could see me. Once he saw me out there, he let go of the ice and swam to me. With a little shake and stumble he was on dry land and none the worse for wear in no time. I was frozen!!! We ran back to the house to warm up. I do believe that's my all-time scariest moment - rescuing that daft dog of mine!!! |
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| We were on holidays in Stowe, Vermont at Christmas time in December 2004 when I noticed that Desi's lymph glands at his neck were unusually swollen. We went to the vet in January, and she suspected that he might have lymphoma. She took aspirate samples from the glands, but the pathology report was inconclusive. Then she took a sample from the gland to send for a biopsy, but that was also inconclusive. By now he had been through a bit of a rigmarole, because his momma is squeamish and didn't deal too well with seeing his incision get infected and whatnot. He had to wear a lampshade for awhile, which caused trouble when the cats were making fun of him. Anyway, eventually I took him back to have a whole lymph node removed (this time from his leg, smaller incision), and in May we got the diagnosis that he does in fact have a rare form of small-cell lymphoma. Given that he's been dealing with the disease for about six months at that point, we were unsure of how long he might live. The vet thought perhaps only a year at the most. I thought for sure he would be the one case that defies the prognosis, but it was just over a year when he did succumb to the disease. We are still broken-hearted... |
