Skye, Our First Cairn

We lost our 13-year-old Cairn terrier, Skye (also known as The Nude, Snoodlepuss, Puddinhead, Licorice Lips, Thunder Chicken, Noodle, and Little Shit), to cancer several years ago.

We first met Skye at her place of birth not far from where we lived. We were in search of a Mothers’ Day present from us kids (Mom had been looking at a book about Cairn terriers) and although I was thrilled with the little exuberant puppy I saw investigating every inch of the breeder’s living room, Geoff was thinking the crazy thing running wildly from one spot to the next was certainly brain damaged. We returned home to ponder our decision, which took me all of ten seconds before reaching for the phone. I was too excited to notice that Geoff was quiet, noncommittal. I thought we were on the same page when I made the call to the breeder to give the thumbs up. After hearing several rings I was startled by Geoff suddenly yelling out “HANG UP!” just as the breeder picked up the phone. My confusion led to a brief pause following the breeder’s hello, and feeling the weight of the silence, I guardedly explained that we would take the new puppy. I hung up and stared at Geoff in bewilderment. He confessed his concerns about giving a mentally challenged puppy to Mom. As it turned out, Skye was a perfect Mothers’ Day present. She was creative (blowing bubbles through her nose as she submerged her head into her water dish to retrieve a treat mistakenly tossed in by me – which we later did repeatedly with great delight), independent (licking Geoff’s nose on demand but turning her head when I approached no matter how much I begged), adorable (burping like an adult male which cracked us up for years), and a perfect match for Mom who called Skye her “baby girl”, which by the way had been my position for the previous 38 years.

Like most dogs, Skye lived for eating and going for walks, and to our repeated surprise she was often able to combine the two activities. It’s amazing to discover how much food is discarded out into the street, which Skye seemed to find with little effort. I can’t tell you how many times we looked down to see an entire slice of pizza hanging out of her mouth, or a huge chocolate chip cookie, or French fries, or half a roasted chicken for crying out loud. And if she didn’t find a treat, she made one. Poop. We were not thrilled with her eating her own poop (or any animal’s poop – mention the horse manure sticking out of her mouth and Geoff will start to gag) and we did what we could to discourage it, running toward her yelling “Yuck, stop that you little shit-eating dog!” which would only result in her eating the tootsie roll turd faster as we approached. This seemed to amuse her to no end, given the enthusiastic wag of her tail and the number of times she engaged us in her game of shit-away. If we managed to get to her in time, she would run off leading us in some new direction, and then knowing how short our attention spans were, circle back to her pile of poop. On one occasion, she made two poop piles and had us running after her between the two mounds of joy. She even continued this game the next day. As the three of us walked outside together, she led the way, strolling off toward a field down the road. Suddenly we recognized that not only had this been the path we took the previous day, but that she was headed directly for those two piles. Still not sure if her intent was to revisit the day old dung, we started to walk a little faster to catch up to her. This resulted in her quickening her pace. We countered. She saw our counter and raised us. Now the three of us were running like mad and again she had us chasing her between the two piles. Let me tell you, if a dog is capable of laughing, when she was playing shit-away, she was laughing.

While most of our memories of Skye are sweet and fun, there was one fretful time when I lost her while on one of our morning walks at the golf course down the street from our house. The sun was just coming up, it was very cold, and snow was on the ground. I let Skye loose to run around as I walked the perimeter of the course. Nearing the end of my trek, I lost sight of her, and when she didn’t come when I called, I started retracing my steps and looking for her tracks. After some time I started to panic but then found some small footprints in the snow that I thought could be hers. When the tracks faded into the nothing, I started to cry. I continued to call for her and ran to the township office that we passed each morning just before entering the golf course. By the time I entered the small building, tears were flowing down my face, my hair was a tangled mess, and my nose was running without even an attempt on my part to wipe it with my sleeve. Somehow the women there were able to translate my words into English and immediately went out into the cold calling Skye’s name. I ran home, crossing a busy road with high-speed traffic, along a wooded path, and down our street, hoping to find her romping through the snow in our front yard. But I saw no sign of her. I ran inside and checked the answering machine. I was still crying, my glasses were frosted over, and I was still greatly in need of blowing my nose as I pressed the play button. The message was brief: Skye was found, a phone number was left. Excitedly I pressed the play button to replay the message and hear the phone number again. What I heard was:  “no messages”. I pressed it again:  “no messages”. And again “no messages”. Oh my god, I had pressed the delete button. More crying. I called Geoff, who had already left for work. I don’t know what I said. I don’t know what he said. I ran back outside and called for Skye. I started back down the trail to the golf course feeling nauseous and unsure of what to do. Almost back to the golf course, a car pulled out of a garage just in front of me. A woman rolled down her window to say that she had Skye. I had no idea who she was or how she new Skye belonged to me, although my ragged appearance might have given her a clue. Apparently she kept dog food outside for stray dogs, and not surprisingly Skye had found it and gone on an eating binge. I was overjoyed. We had our baby back. I found out later that a gentleman I had met only briefly a few weeks earlier while out on a walk had recognized Skye at the edge of the road pacing back and forth and coaxed her across that busy road with the high speed traffic. He was unable to get her to jump into his car but his efforts were enough to help her eventually come back home to us.

It is sad that we have lost her again with no one to help her back home. She was a good dog. We will miss her.