The Mudpig's Tale

Thanks to everyone who has sent condolences in the last few days. They are much appreciated. I mentioned in my brief weekly cartoon post a few days ago that I might tell the story and here it is.

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My wife and I lost a cherished family member last weekend to an accident. Our dog of 9 years, Jemima, left us in a tragic, although strangely fitting way. I know that people’s testimonies about lost pets can be tiresome and so I am writing this account more for myself than for any reader.

I adopted Jemima nine years ago, a month before Christy (whom I’ve long called Olive Oyl in these blog posts) and I started dating. She was found tied to a street sign in LA with a piece of yellow, caution tape knotted around her neck. No one in the area knew where she came from or to whom she belonged and so she came to live with me. She was about one year old, fearful, and likely traumatized. We seemed to take to each other pretty well in that first month but the moment she met my new girlfriend and future wife, she took to her like a pilgrim to a religious vision. I’ve often said that Christy was Jemima’s messiah.

Shortly after I adopted her and before either of us had met Christy.

A few years later, Jemima moved to Mexico with us and has been notably happier here than she was in the states. For the better part of six years, I’ve taken her on a couple-mile walk every morning through some undeveloped desert and forest land near our house. She never seemed to like cities much and far preferred to be out in the countryside. She was afraid of so many sounds that we’d lost count: fireworks and thunder (of course), rumbling of any kind, wind, clanking, trucks, hammering, construction noises as far as two blocks away, and in Mexico we discovered a new one, the sound of someone shoveling gravel. People here build new rooms onto their houses as their families grow and so you often see a pile of gravel outside a neighbor’s house, which they’re using to make concrete. The shoveling can go on for hours and although it barely registers in our ears, Jemima would visibly tremble. Indoors, she rarely left our sides. She sulked around like Eeyore with her head down and her tail between her legs. But outside our walls and especially outside of town, it was a different story.

In a park or, better yet, the countryside, she came alive as a fearless explorer. Suddenly, she’d rarely be less than 20 yards from us, exploring, running, digging, crawling into holes and under heavy brush, rolling in dust or mud. We had a dozen nicknames for her but the most enduring and descriptive was “Mudpig.” No dog has ever loved to get dirty outdoors more than she.

Last Sunday, we took her and our other dog, Monita (Spanish for “little monkey girl”) to a canyon area about an hour outside of town. We found the place on a hiking app online and downloaded a map of the reportedly 4-kilometer, 2 1/2-hour trail to Christy’s phone. Comments on the site had said the trail was not well defined and there was no cell service in that area so we’d need that map. We most certainly did.

Upon arrival, we were taken aback by the beauty of the canyon and surrounding mesas. We had a shoulder bag with water for us and the dogs, a little first aid kit, binoculars, etcetera, and Christy’s phone with the map. The weather was beautiful as the four of us joyfully set out. The first couple of hours were incredible and the dogs were having the time of their lives. They’d wander off here and there but always come back when we called, wagging their tails and with big, panting smiles. We lost the trail many times but with the map were able to get back to it without too much trouble. The terrain was more rugged than we’d thought but we were all in good shape and up for it.

As the day wore on, however, we realized that either the website was wrong or we’d misread it—we’d hiked for more than two hours and around four kilometers but were only halfway around the big loop on the map. We were running out of water and our phone’s battery was clearly not going to last as long as it might take to get back to the car. It became obvious that we needed to cut the hike short. Looking at the map, we saw what seemed to be a valid shortcut across an arc in the trail so we decided to take it. But about half an hour into that poor decision, we realized we were perhaps more than a kilometer off course and on the wrong side of the deep canyon. 

We both began to get very concerned and were verging on scared. We had only a mouthful of water left for us and about the same for the dogs, the phone with the map was flashing low battery, and we didn’t know exactly how far it was to the car or exactly how to get there without the map. We’d been hiking for three hours already and knew that our only chance was to backtrack in a hurry to where we diverged from the trail and hope for the best. The terrain was very rough and not good for hurrying. And we were already exhausted.

Standing on that mesa, realizing the danger we were in, we called the dogs and headed back. Monita came running, Jemima did not.

We spent the next 20 minutes frantically calling and searching but she did not come. This was not like her. The top of this enormous mesa was relatively bald with only smatterings of small cacti and a few scrawny, spiky mesquite trees, so there was nowhere for her to hide. We resisted acknowledging the obvious, but it was clear that she was no longer on the mesa. She had to have fallen over the edge and it was an easy 80 feet from the riverbed.

We searched the edges where we last saw her as well as we could but there was no way to see more than a few feet over the cliff without falling off ourselves, and the rocks and terrain were so irregular that there were dozens if not a hundred deep crevices she could have fallen into. Anxious moments passed as we realized she was happening and that we could not get her back. We would have to walk away from there and go home, knowing we’d never see her again. 

Getting to the bottom of the cliff would have taken another hour or so of climbing and hiking and given our situation, would have been too dangerous. With our phone barely hanging onto a charge and using the map as little as possible, we made our way back to the car, half-scared, completely mortified, and numb. We cried all the way home and throughout the evening. 

The next morning, we returned to the site and viewed it from various vantage points. From the mesa across the canyon, we could better see just how high and rugged those cliffs were. We could also see the entire mesa where she disappeared and confirmed to our satisfaction that she could not have been lost or otherwise hidden, she had to have gone over the edge. We then spent an hour finding a path down to the bottom of the canyon and making our way through the mostly dry river bed full of enormous boulders to the foot of the cliffs where she must have fallen. The ground around the foot of the cliffs was impassable with brambles, cacti, and mesquite. It was so thick that we were unable to even see into it and would have required a chainsaw to penetrate. 

Standing in this profoundly beautiful canyon, the final stage of acceptance sank in: she slipped over the edge and could not have survived the fall. Somewhere in that tangled labyrinth of stone towers and wild, thorny brambles was the body of our sweet girl. We held each other, sobbed, said some final words to her, and committed her body to the canyon. It occurred to us both that this was exactly the sort of place she’d want to be buried.

This was surely one of the best days of her life. She was in her element, the kind of place she loved best, the only kind of surroundings in which she felt truly comfortable. At home, she was so often a quivering, nervous wreck, but in the wild, she became a different dog—athletic and fearless. Ironically, that combination of courage and curiosity was surely her undoing. She chased a lizard too close to the edge or burrowed into something she thought was a rabbit hole but wasn’t. We’ll never know. We only pray it was quick and that she did not suffer. 

We have quite a few stories of Jemima’s contradictory behavior and near-death experiences both at home and in the wild. In a panic of separation anxiety, she once lept from our third-floor patio retaining wall 10 feet across a three-story drop to our neighbor’s rooftop patio. We could see the claw marks on the wall where she clung to the edge with her front paws and clawed with her rear legs to push herself over. On another occasion, she courageously jumped into a raging river the morning after an enormous rain storm. She barely made it out alive and I had to run a hundred yards downriver to grab her as she struggled toward the shore. There are more stories, but for now, I’ll just say that those of us who knew her well thought this a very fitting end for her, the sort she might be proud of. Lying around the house, dying of old age or disease just wasn’t her style. We loved our mudpig so much.

We believe dogs should always have at least one dog companion, so we will adopt another amigo for Monita in the near future, when the right lost soul presents itself. We’ll feel this pain again and again as each pet dies, but the love and gratification they bring to our lives in the interim are irreplaceable. 

Christy and Jemima in Mexico.