A story about a Prince
This morning, I was reading an article over at One Mom, about her Sussex Spaniel. In the article, she mentioned her Collie that passed away last year and it brought many memories to my mind about a Collie I used to have. His name was Prince and this will be part of his story. First, a little background.
When my twin brother and I first entered junior high school, we gained access to the school library and we discovered an author by the name of Albert Payson Terhune. We fell in love with his stories and the dogs he wrote about. Most of them were Collies and we determined that one day, we would have a Collie. We went in together and bought one from a pet store and of course, we named him Lad, after the most famous Collie Terhune wrote about. He was something special and we were very fond of him. Gary was especially close to him because I moved away to college and he basically became Gary’s dog.
Several years later, after Tammy and I were married for a short time, we had a baby boy. His name was Tyrel and he lived for about twelve hours. (He would have been eighteen years old May 6th.) As you can imagine, Tammy was very depressed after he passed away. Some weeks after the funeral, we were coming back from choosing the headstone for Tyrel’s grave and as we came through Siloam Springs, Arkansas, Tammy noticed a pickup going down the road with two Collies in the back. It had a sign on the back that said “free collies”. Needless to say, we chased them down and brought both of them home. Prince was seven months old at the time, still a puppy, but what a puppy. He was already huge and he didn’t have his full coat or his full growth. In his prime, he weighed in at 110 pounds and was a giant, both in body and in spirit.
I have yet to have a dog that was as smart as Prince. He just seemed to understand what you said and what you wanted. When we first brought him home, he was bad to rear up and place his feet on a person’s chest. The first time he did it to me, I told him no and pushed him down. It took just a couple of times and until the day he died, he could not be enticed to jump up on anyone. After we had him a while, he got the back gate open on our chain link fence and made his way to my father-in-law’s house, just down the road. He had a female dog that was in heat and Prince went to check it out. When I realized where he had went, I walked down the road and put him on a leash. We trotted all the way home and when I put him back in the yard, I walked him back to the gate, pointed him at the gate, told him no, and rapped his nose twice. A few minutes later, I checked on him and he was nosing around the gate again. I stuck my head out the door and sharply told him no again. He never tried to get out again.
After we moved from the Siloam Springs area, back to Roland, Oklahoma, he had to stay at our old place, until we could get a fence put up. My in-laws moved into our trailer and they called and said we had to do something because he was walking the fence, wondering what had happened to his family. We were all relieved to get him moved to his new home in Roland and for us all to be together again.
Prince had a personality all his own. His tail had been broken on the very tip and I will always believe it was from a car. Most Collies and a lot of dogs will chase cars, but not Prince. He stayed away from vehicles and if there was another dog in the yard with him, they didn’t chase cars either. He would physically take them by the back of the neck, put them on the ground and stand over them until the vehicle was passed. It was funny to watch, but Prince meant business. He would get very forceful, if necessary. Lots of teeth showing and all of that.
The main fault that Prince had was his intolerance of another grown dog in the yard. If it was a male, the fight would be on and Prince refused to back down. If it was a female, he made sure she knew who was the boss. He was unafraid to challenge another dog, no matter how big he was. When it came to puppies, he wouldn’t bother them, but he just wanted to be left alone. However, he wouldn’t tolerate something bothering a puppy he felt belonged to him. Once, we had a little puppy for a while and I was walking them around the block. Prince was on a leash, but the puppy was not. He was just staying right with his big buddy. I stopped to talk to a neighbor that had a pit bull. Prince paid the other dog no mind, until the pit snarled and snapped at the puppy through the fence. It was all I could do to hold Prince back and I fully believe there would have been a major battle, if there hadn’t been a fence between them. He was very protective of anything that he perceived to be his.
For all of his size, and his bluster, Prince was a big baby at heart. As I mentioned, he was afraid of vehicles and that included riding in them. I tried to get him used to riding, but I felt sorry for him and stopped trying. The last time I remember having him in my truck, he rode in the back with Alisha and Randi and he was trying to get in their lap, he was so afraid.
When it came to children, he was the best. He was very gentle and protective of them and it didn’t matter if they were know to him or strangers. Once, there was a birthday party across the street and because our yard was bigger, the kids were in our yard playing. Prince got a little tired of all the commotion and went away from the crowd a little ways and laid down. A little girl that was about five years old followed him and when he laid down, she sat on the ground, laid her head over on his big shoulder and went to sleep. He had never seen her before, but that didn’t matter.
I suppose I could go on and on about Prince. He was a very special dog and there will never be another like him. Putting him down was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do, but he was a very sick dog and I know it was the right thing to do. Just so you know how magnificent he was, I have found a picture that was taken before the time of digital cameras. It is a little grainy, but I managed to use my digital camera to take this picture of an older picture. He was something special. One of those dogs that you had to know to believe.
Collies are a majestic, wonderful, loyal dog. I miss our Lolly very much. I have added her picture to the post you read earlier (it’s at the end). It was so hard watching her get “lost” as the dementia grew worse and worse. She would pace for hours on end, and even attacked me at one point because she did not know me anymore. I will never forget that last car ride to the vet … she always rode in the front passenger seat and always managed to get her big self all curled up in the seat so she could look out the window. That trip though, she curled up in the seat and put her head in my lap … she had never done that. She just looked at me with such sad eyes, begging for help … for rest. It was awful.
Thanks for sharing your story about Prince … he’s a beautiful dog.
Thanks, Kerry. I found her picture and she is truly a wonderful looking dog.
It was so hard to let Prince go. It has been several years and I still think about him. I may never feel about another dog the way I felt about Prince. Thanks for sharing your story about Lolly.