IN MEMORY OF INKY, 1990-2005

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

In memory of Inky.

INKY CAME TO ME from the Tompkins County (New York) animal shelter in June of 1990. Acquired as the casual accoutrement of a graduate student’s career, Inky instead became my constant companion for the next fifteen years, influencing my choice of friends and activities—the very course of my life—in a thousand ways, large and small. She spent her early years in the upstate city of Ithaca. A Labrador mix of indeterminate strains, Inky grew into a magnificent animal of great beauty and stamina. She had an intimate acquaintance with the gorges, forests, and reservoirs around Ithaca, where we spent many hours tramping, in all weather and all seasons.

Inky’s temperament was nuanced. She deigned to fetch sticks and balls, and instead took great pleasure in the hunt, stalking squirrels with an almost artistic absorption. In her relations with other dogs she was rarely aggressive or dominant. Yet with her best canine friends Inky was capable of a ferocity of play that seemed like frenzied possession. With strange people she could be diffident, even shy, and was prone to an almost neurotic aversion to ordinary objects—an umbrella handle carved in the head of a duck; a Pez dispenser. Of other animals, ferrets filled her with terror. Yet she also recognized and loved unreservedly those people who reciprocated. To me she was hopelessly loyal, and followed me from room to room to keep me in sight. There was a gentleness at her core. For children, alas, she had less affection—she reacted, I think, to the sheer fact of their height—and treated them at times like prey of convenience. While she never got into serious trouble for it, it was an animus that had to be worked around, and it diminished as she aged.

In 1996 we traded the gorges and woodlands of upstate New York for the scrubbier plains of central Oklahoma. Although jackrabbits were more than her match for speed, she took to her new surroundings with enthusiasm. She found armadillos mildly alarming. A year later Inky acquired her very own yard for the first time, which she ruthlessly policed of all interlopers. Inky was now getting older, and it was for the first time, on a trip to Boulder, Colorado, that she simply stopped during a hike and refused to go any further. From that point on our relationship turned ever so slightly away from my constantly trying to restrain her energies and towards my helping her along when she needed it. Hip injuries and arthritis noticeably slowed her down, but in the best of her later years she enjoyed long and leisurely outings in the company of the affectionate playmates that she always seemed to draw to her. The less she was able to do, the more pleasure I took in what she was able to accomplish.

The arrival of children in her household was discomfiting at first, but the young and the old managed to live peacefully, if more in parallel rather than together. As my family responsibilities grew, I could spend less time with her than I used to, but I believe Inky accepted that and was happy nonetheless. In old age Inky’s muzzle turned a beautiful white that spread up above her eyebrows and down her neck. She eventually developed heart and respiratory problems that caused me scares, but I was diligent in her care, and solicitous of her comfort. I fretted particularly about her feeling pain. In her last year she slept most of the days, but still somehow managed to follow me about the house, as she always did.

On July 18, 2005, Inky died of a heart attack in her shady corner of the backyard. Only the day before she had eaten well, I had groomed her, and we had taken a walk. I was told her death was not drawn out. I know her life was good and her ending days dignified. But my grief over her remains wild and unreasoning.

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