Remembering Bay: Our Fierce and Loving Livestock Guardian Dog

All four dogs trot the narrow trail ahead of me. The dry creek bed to our right winds its way through a forest of valley oak, filtering the mid-July light. It's still summer, according to our human calendars, but the warm and yellow sun is hinting orange, an early nod to fall. 

My right hand holds against my heart a plastic bag. It's contents are soft and pliable, heavy and yet oddly comforting. They are the ashes of Jasper Bay, our beloved Anatolian Shephard - Great Pyrenees companion.

Except for his first eight weeks, Bay lived his entire life with us. I picked him out of a litter of 12, sired by a regal Anatolian, out of a noble Pyrenees dam. Four of the pups were the fawn color of their father, four the white of their mother and four with white coats and fawn spots. Bay’s breeder knew that a Livestock Guardian Dog who could also be gregarious with people was a must for us, given the number of human comings and goings at the ranch. I asked her to choose one of the spotted males as I already had an elder female dog at home. Based on his lovable nature, she chose Bay.

I picked him up on a hot August day, loathe to take him from his puppy pack. It would be the second, and last, time I would participate in the breeding business, favoring giving homes to animals already here who need a new place to go without further contributing to overpopulation. But I did want a livestock guardian for the ranch, a mixed breed to minimize inbreeding issues, and this breeder had been recommended to me as one who was thoughtful in how, and how often, she bred her dogs, and with whom she placed her puppies.

Bay didn’t like riding in the truck, and he never would. I only forced him into a vehicle seven more times in his nine years. Twice to get his puppy shots — he threw up on both trips. To be neutered — by then he was so big I couldn’t lift him into the truck so I hauled him to the vet in our horse trailer. And for our move to Paso Robles, which took months and is another story. To get X-rays which revealed he had osteosarcoma in his hind leg, and, again, to get that hind leg removed. The last time, a miraculous year later (his prognosis post-amputation was three to six months), for scans that showed the cancer had spread to his lungs.

Bay's been gone two months now. It is still surreal. I feel as if I'm missing the limb he shed more than a year ago, though he didn't miss a beat. When I picked him up from the veterinary hospital after his amputation, as soon as we clipped him into his harness in the waiting room, he hopped along in a steady gait, alternating between his two front legs and single back one, then broke into a run out the front doors, dragging the vet tech behind him. He leapt onto the trailer I usually had to drag him into. "You'll need to teach him to walk again," they had told me. When I let him out upon our return home, he burst out of the trailer door to greet his people and his pack.

Making the decision to amputate versus chemotherapy versus euthanasia was one that took weeks of deliberation. I weighed the risk of his leg breaking, his bone’s integrity compromised by the cancer, before we could operate. Given the diminishment of his quality of life due to a repeated need to transport, not to mention its sickening effects, I ruled out chemo. Amputation seemed like the cleanest and quickest way to restore his vitality and freedom, even if only for a time.

While dragging around the increasingly swollen weight of his diseased leg, the rest of Bay was highly alive and engaged. He was not a dog ready to be euthanized. He rarely missed his morning and evening patrols of the ranch. Every night he stood at the ready, scanning his land and its inhabitants, barking a deep and furious growl at anyone - human or animal - who crossed our boundaries. All day he would sleep (Livestock Guardians Dogs are nocturnal) on the cool tile floor of the ranch house.

I love easily and well, and animals hold cherished space in my heart. And Bay, well, I'm not sure I have ever loved another being more, nor been so angry with, at times, one I loved so much. Bay was as fierce and willful as he was loving and affectionate. When his instinct took over, he had no fear. He would chase coyotes until they moved off our property. He innately knew where the lines were. Unfortunately, that meant he also chased deer, too, which I didn’t like. But no amount of my yelling, scolding or bad-dogging made a difference. Though I never saw him with a wildcat, I have no doubt the outcome would have been the same. In Africa, Livestock Guardian and wildlife advocates have placed Livestock Guardian puppies with tribes to guard their livestock. Since the inception of that program, the killing of cheetahs and other big cats killed by tribesman to protect their herds has radically diminished thanks to the presence of these dogs.

Bay’s breeder sent me home with the advice that Bay would repeatedly bring forth for me to contemplate. “You cannot be dominant over these dogs, you have to find a way to partner with them.” We always knew when someone was arriving at the ranch, when a horse had broken out of its pasture, when a new dog was present, whether a stray or brought by a visitor. He was fierce in establishing his alpha-ness with other dogs, pinning them to the ground by the withers with his mouth and a deep growl, but never once did he break their skin. We kept visiting dogs separate, only taking the steps to integrate a new dog into the pack if he or she was going to stay awhile. Each new dog had to earn his or her place. Once they did, he guarded them, too.

Bay loved to play. Sir Francis Bacon, a magnificent Gloucester Old Spot pig, was two years old when we brought Bay home. They grew to be fast and inseparable friends, chasing each other around the poop pile in a game of canine-porcine hide-and-seek. Bay barking at Francis to keep him off our porch. Those two dragged hooves and paws in our move to Paso Robles. Repeated efforts to load them onto our trailer failed, such that they were the last two to arrive here, more than a month after the horses.

Perhaps Bay’s fierceness was what fueled him through amputation, and repelled the sneaky, lurking attempts by his cancer to return long beyond his prognosis. What leg? Gone. Phew. Relief. Only three legs? No problem! I can still run! I have a job to do. His instincts so innate. His purpose so deep, embodied in every cell. No rumination. No question. His life was still to be lived fully.

The only thing that slowed him down were the cancer cells seeping into his lungs, claiming the oxygen that had been as given to him as his purpose. I could see it in his eyes -- not understanding why his failing body could not keep up with his will, frustrated when his instinct was not met by his energy. The pull of his illness to surrender did not align with his job. When Doc came to give him acupuncture he would snap at her such that we had to muzzle him. Eventually, though, he would relax into its healing benefits, and sleep for the next 24 hours. I am certain that the combination of Bay’s will, high quality meals of vegetable, bone, meat and broth, in addition to the acupuncture and herbs to support a clean gut and bone health, were key ingredients in extending his life.

The decision to finally help him pass was agonizing. He did not want to go. He did not understand why he had to. He had recovered from many maladies in his nine years -- skin and ear infections, strained ligaments, an amputation even! Why am I not getting better this time? And yet on the day when he could no longer get himself up on that oh so valiant, solo hind leg to pee, urine pooling around his hind end, his expression full of shame, I had to make the call. If I hadn’t, the rate of deterioration of his strength and breath would have ceased his life in just a few more days. How much more would he have to endure to die on his own? Did I make the call too soon? And what about his dignity, and pride? It was a choice I have relived over and over again. It was a choice that had, and will never have, a win.

The dogs continue ahead on the trail, rounding the bend to one of my favorite spots where the trail crosses the creek and forms a sandy beach. I pull a pair of scissors from my jeans' back pocket and punch a hole in the bag of ashes. It is time to let Bay go. I’ve done my best to stuff my grief — not wanting to notice, much less to feel, the very large hole in my days without him. To not be able to rub his tummy each time I walk down the hallway where he took his daily naps. He was so large in the space that I had to step over him. Inevitably as I attempted to do so, I would feel a large paw on the front of my shin such that I had no choice but to comply.

Nights are now unbearably quiet without his booming bark alerting us to approaching visitors, assuring us that all was being watched. I miss his morning “ow-uhs,” vocalized when he was ready to go out on our patrols of the land, protesting that I had a few more chores to finish first. Gazing into his deep amber eyes, I sensed I had known him for longer than this lifetime.

We continue walking the loop through the oak forest that Bay most loved, dribbling the ash out of its bag, dusting the brown dirt and graying my black hiking shoes. For a moment, it feels like any other morning, all the dogs and me, together, beginning our next day on Earth. Down through another valley and across the creek again. Out into the full sunlight. Along the tall deer fence protecting a neighbor’s vineyard. Past our herd of Mustangs and friends, foraging on the hillside. Back down across the creek and through the forest again.

By the time we arrive at Bay’s favorite spot — a natural spring in the turn of the creek that maintains a small pool year-round even through our dry California summers — in which he liked to lay down, full body, to cool himself, the bag of ashes is almost empty. But I had saved some for here. I sprinkle them across the surface, the gray particles subsumed by patches of algae, and then toss the last of them into the water. I make sure that every particle is emptied as each is too sacred to throw away when the bag goes into the trash. I take a deep breath, look up at the cottonwoods stretching into the deep blue sky, light dancing on their leaves. Here is the only place these trees grow on our land.

Up ahead the dogs have found the skeleton of a young deer, each gnawing with great enthusiasm on a bone they have selected. In spreading his ashes, I have released my last physical connection with Bay, except for the occasional tuft of white hair that I still find in the nooks and crannies of our house. I look again at the sky and the cottonwoods, the horses and the dogs, and Bay’s favorite cooling pool. And somewhere, from a deep, quite place inside, I hear, “the creek will rise again.”