tagalong
Well-Known Member
This is usually a fun and interesting thread on other forums - no matter what the topic of the forum itself is. Many of us have an unusual screen name - let's share how we chose it... or if your SN (screen name) is obviously you - tell us a story about your avatar or horses!
Along the way we can have some smiles... maybe some tears... and hopefully some hugs.
I'll start. Warning - this will be long-winded!
[SIZE=24pt]tagalong[/SIZE]
I picked Tag out of a litter of smooth fox terrier puppies born on the hunter/jumper/dressage farm where I used to work almost 18 years ago now... I laid her on a large envelope on the kitchen table and traced around her as her fat little week-old body wiggled and squirmed. I traced her outline and detailed her markings - so everyone else would know that this little girl was mine. My Tagalong.
She was by my side day & night. My best friend. My confidant. I cried on her. I told her all my secrets.. my fears... my worries... my hopes... my joys. She sat with me in the foaling stalls when we moved on to B.C. and an Arabian/mini farm on the slopes of the Rocky Mountains. She often helped the new moms with their newborns... staying in the corner of the stall On Guard and occasionally licking the baby on the nose. I worried about that at first but the mares trusted her. Tag loved the foals and kept watch over all of them - both Arabians and minis. She became a therapy dog. An agility champion. She raised her "little" sister, Folli the borzoi. They went everywhere together. We were a family.
This is Tag... on the agility course.
And Tag with Folli...
She was really more of a Labrador in a terrier skin. She loved to swim - and would head out into the river just to swim against the current and try to catch sticks floating by. She had many memorable adventures - including trying to make friends with a very young grizzly bear cub whose mom used the creek pasture as her pathway down to the river.
Tag did not understand why I was less than excited about that little jaunt.
After many adventures in B.C., we were delighted to be able to move here to Washington for a while - for new adventures and new friends. Tag & Folli sat quietly in the waiting area at the immigration office while all the necessary paperwork was gone over. Well, it was far too hot to leave them in the truck - and everyone in that stressful environment enjoyed the peace they brought them...
And then... the Dark Day came. Folli was snoozing in the sun with the other farm dogs. Tag was dancing in the barn aisle playing with a stick as I worked. Every so often I would throw it for her... and she would happily fetch it and come bouncing back. At one point I turned around and noticed the stick laying on the floor. No Tag. Odd. I called her. All the other dogs came in - but no Tag. I could feel the panic rising... I called up to our other barn on the hill to see if she had been naughty and snuck under the fence to run up there for a visit - as she had done a few times. They had not seen her. Now the panic set in.
I spent hours looking. I called and called until my voice was gone. I crawled through the rain forest of the watershed that borders the farm - over massive fallen cedar trees, through swampy gullies - calling and calling, begging, pleading. Folli struggled along in my wake, carefully weaving her skinny legs through the underbrush. She was designed for open spaces and speed - not bushwhacking! I could hear some of our boarders calling up and down the road and checking the ditches. I remember sitting on the tail gate of my truck up at the other barn, crying as it grew dark... and asking the boarders to please help find her - please.
Where was she?!!
It rained like a monsoon that night. I left the porch light on to guide her home. I prayed. Every hour or so I walked up to the gate and back, calling and calling. At one point, coyotes whooped in the distance and I wondered what they were so excited about... what had they found. I knew she was out there Somewhere... hurt - or else she would have come home. Injured, scared, wet and cold... holed up Somewhere waitng for me to find her and help her - hadn't I always?
The porch light stayed on. I spent my days searching - the shelters, the ditches - everywhere - and my nights doing my farm work. I made laminated posters with pictures of Tag on them... asking for any sightings... any help at all. A couple of psychic ladies called after they saw the posters and offered their help. None of that led to any clues. I spent hundreds of dollars on ads, gas and yet more posters.
But nothing.
It was as if she never existed - except in my heart. And Folli's. Days turned into weeks... then months. I never found her. I will always feel that I let her down. It was my job - my duty - to keep her safe - and I failed her when she needed me the most. She waited for me to come... and I never did.
It still hurts. The not knowing. Not knowing how scared she was. Not knowing if she suffered. Not knowing...
Did a coyote ambush her? Did she get hit by a truck on our little road and crawl off to wait for help - help that never came? Did someone pick her up - and then decide they did not want her after all - and let her loose in an area she did not know? Did she try to come home - and something happened along the way?
Not knowing.
In time we brought a new little fox terrier into our lives. Folli loved her... and raised her... and little Fig followed her everywhere...
Fig & I lost sweet, gentle Folli to cancer... and Tug the border terrier came into our lives. Not as a replacement for Folli - that would be impossible - but as his own little self. I love(d) all of them... but there will always be a hole in my heart where Tag used to live. She was The One.
Bored yet? Anyway... ever since I started wandering around the internet - I have always been tagalong. Unless - like at eBay - someone else had the gall to be tagalong first.
From the day I first joined the LB forum in its original incarnation - I have been tagalong. And after I lost her - it was even more meaningful.
The porch light is still on at night. For Tag.
Lori
Next story...
Along the way we can have some smiles... maybe some tears... and hopefully some hugs.
I'll start. Warning - this will be long-winded!
[SIZE=24pt]tagalong[/SIZE]
I picked Tag out of a litter of smooth fox terrier puppies born on the hunter/jumper/dressage farm where I used to work almost 18 years ago now... I laid her on a large envelope on the kitchen table and traced around her as her fat little week-old body wiggled and squirmed. I traced her outline and detailed her markings - so everyone else would know that this little girl was mine. My Tagalong.
She was by my side day & night. My best friend. My confidant. I cried on her. I told her all my secrets.. my fears... my worries... my hopes... my joys. She sat with me in the foaling stalls when we moved on to B.C. and an Arabian/mini farm on the slopes of the Rocky Mountains. She often helped the new moms with their newborns... staying in the corner of the stall On Guard and occasionally licking the baby on the nose. I worried about that at first but the mares trusted her. Tag loved the foals and kept watch over all of them - both Arabians and minis. She became a therapy dog. An agility champion. She raised her "little" sister, Folli the borzoi. They went everywhere together. We were a family.
This is Tag... on the agility course.
And Tag with Folli...
She was really more of a Labrador in a terrier skin. She loved to swim - and would head out into the river just to swim against the current and try to catch sticks floating by. She had many memorable adventures - including trying to make friends with a very young grizzly bear cub whose mom used the creek pasture as her pathway down to the river.
Tag did not understand why I was less than excited about that little jaunt.
After many adventures in B.C., we were delighted to be able to move here to Washington for a while - for new adventures and new friends. Tag & Folli sat quietly in the waiting area at the immigration office while all the necessary paperwork was gone over. Well, it was far too hot to leave them in the truck - and everyone in that stressful environment enjoyed the peace they brought them...
And then... the Dark Day came. Folli was snoozing in the sun with the other farm dogs. Tag was dancing in the barn aisle playing with a stick as I worked. Every so often I would throw it for her... and she would happily fetch it and come bouncing back. At one point I turned around and noticed the stick laying on the floor. No Tag. Odd. I called her. All the other dogs came in - but no Tag. I could feel the panic rising... I called up to our other barn on the hill to see if she had been naughty and snuck under the fence to run up there for a visit - as she had done a few times. They had not seen her. Now the panic set in.
I spent hours looking. I called and called until my voice was gone. I crawled through the rain forest of the watershed that borders the farm - over massive fallen cedar trees, through swampy gullies - calling and calling, begging, pleading. Folli struggled along in my wake, carefully weaving her skinny legs through the underbrush. She was designed for open spaces and speed - not bushwhacking! I could hear some of our boarders calling up and down the road and checking the ditches. I remember sitting on the tail gate of my truck up at the other barn, crying as it grew dark... and asking the boarders to please help find her - please.
Where was she?!!
It rained like a monsoon that night. I left the porch light on to guide her home. I prayed. Every hour or so I walked up to the gate and back, calling and calling. At one point, coyotes whooped in the distance and I wondered what they were so excited about... what had they found. I knew she was out there Somewhere... hurt - or else she would have come home. Injured, scared, wet and cold... holed up Somewhere waitng for me to find her and help her - hadn't I always?
The porch light stayed on. I spent my days searching - the shelters, the ditches - everywhere - and my nights doing my farm work. I made laminated posters with pictures of Tag on them... asking for any sightings... any help at all. A couple of psychic ladies called after they saw the posters and offered their help. None of that led to any clues. I spent hundreds of dollars on ads, gas and yet more posters.
But nothing.
It was as if she never existed - except in my heart. And Folli's. Days turned into weeks... then months. I never found her. I will always feel that I let her down. It was my job - my duty - to keep her safe - and I failed her when she needed me the most. She waited for me to come... and I never did.
It still hurts. The not knowing. Not knowing how scared she was. Not knowing if she suffered. Not knowing...
Did a coyote ambush her? Did she get hit by a truck on our little road and crawl off to wait for help - help that never came? Did someone pick her up - and then decide they did not want her after all - and let her loose in an area she did not know? Did she try to come home - and something happened along the way?
Not knowing.
In time we brought a new little fox terrier into our lives. Folli loved her... and raised her... and little Fig followed her everywhere...
Fig & I lost sweet, gentle Folli to cancer... and Tug the border terrier came into our lives. Not as a replacement for Folli - that would be impossible - but as his own little self. I love(d) all of them... but there will always be a hole in my heart where Tag used to live. She was The One.
Bored yet? Anyway... ever since I started wandering around the internet - I have always been tagalong. Unless - like at eBay - someone else had the gall to be tagalong first.
From the day I first joined the LB forum in its original incarnation - I have been tagalong. And after I lost her - it was even more meaningful.
The porch light is still on at night. For Tag.
Lori
Next story...
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