It is Done.

Not much to say. The legend has left my life.

14 years ago, we’d moved to Arizona, got a house with a yard. We could get a dog.  A DOG!!

We’d gutted the house because of the meth and were living in the motorhome in the yard. Didn’t have the washer and dryer hooked up because we had an electrical connection, a garden hose and it was winter in Arizona.

So, I’d truck the dirty laundry up the 20 miles or so from Superior to Globe to the laundromat, and one day I found a page torn from a spiral notebook on the bulletin board that said, “free dog.”

I called and went up to meet this young, teenage kid who wanted to give away a dog.

She was a kinda cute, red speckled thing. I asked the kid (his name was Wade,) what kind of dog and he said, “Queensland Heeler,” which meant nothing to me.

Then he sobbed and said his dad was going to shoot her if he didn’t “get rid of her,” himself.

I asked her name. “Escape.”  Why? “That’s what she does.”

Is she housebroken? “Don’t know, she ain’t ever been in no house.”

“You want her?”

I took her.

They had driven up in a Dodge Caravan driven by a man in a dusty tan cotton duster, with a tiny blonde haired, blue eyed girl in flannel pants and a pink t-shirt. They gave me the dog, with the leash as a kind of noose around her neck, no collar, and got into the van and as they shut the doors to drive away, I heard the little girl scream.  “Where’s my puppy???? Where’s my puppy???”

I had to finish laundry and Dog was terrified of crossing the threshold into the laundromat.  I hurried, we stopped at Walmart on the way home and got bowls, a collar, food and a tie-out and whatever.

And went home.

We had a Ben Franklin stove we used for cooking and outside heat. We sat and talked to the dog and renamed her, Ruby. And talked to her and talked to her. Put on the collar, secured the tie-up, and went to bed.

WE woke up in the morning, to find the tie-up rope chewed through in three places, and the pup sitting proudly in a yard chair holding a big piece of it in her mouth, wagging her tail at us. She chose us.

Took a week before she was sleeping in the RV with us and has been the pulse of the family since.

14 skunks in the first couple months. Ask me, I know what works and what doesn’t. Best thing is just breathe it in and get used to it. After about #6, we’d just bring her in and cuddle up with her, skunk or no.

One night with the garden hose in her mouth after taking a Colorado River Toad away from her. That prompted our relationship with Snakesafe.com where we first got her toad trained, and then Diamondback trained. She wouldn’t go into a certain corner of the yard in the wet season when the toads were coming out, and she’d either rip your arm off if she was leashed, or herd you away from any rattler scent if you hiked with her.

The downside of hiking with her, is your group could have no stragglers. Not allowed. Heels would be nipped until all the cattle complied.

Love was in abundance. Right up until the end. Monday, her eyes said, “You’re not going to do anything rash, are you? Just sit here and pat me.”

But Tuesday she said, “Please set me free.”

She beat us by a little bit.

She was the best girl, right up until the end.