Clara Valley MacHeath 2/16/97-3/9/2009
Sire: UK/Swe/Nor. Ch. Jespah Alekzandr of Janak
Dam: Clara Valley Victoria Regina
Today Mac joined his family at the Rainbow Bridge. He is survived here at Clara Valley by his sister, a niece and a great nephew. Mac was named after the pickpocket, Mac The Knife in the Threepenny Opera. He was aptly named because no pocket was safe from his nose. He just knew that somewhere in the bottom there was a Kleenex, or better still some treats that he could steal without the owner knowing. If you were sitting at the dining table and reached for your napkin, you would often find it gone and Mac had devoured most of it under the table. He was obsessed with paper of all sorts and no wastebasket was safe from his nose. All Kleenex boxes and toilet paper rolls had to be securely stowed out of his reach. Of all our dogs, he is the only one who loved toys. Over the years he had many that ended up either under the lawnmower or so rain soaked they had to be thrown away, but his very favorites were teddy bears. He would carry them around for days on end until one day when he was bored he would start to disembowel them and then he would just carry around the remains until they too ended up in the trash.
Mac was a slow starter in the show ring and he never really enjoyed it. He was a bad traveller and would frequently throw up in the car on the way to the show. He did fairly well until he was diagnozed with a thyroid problem and then it just didn't seem fair to force him to do something he absolutely hated, so he was retired to the farm. He would love to run with his brothers, and the charge across the fields in the morning when I opened the gate was a sight to behold. As a hunter he was really not very good. Once a squirrel misjudged the distance between two trees and landed on his head. He was so surprised, the squirrel was long gone by the time he realized what had happened. However, he loved to chase the UPS van up and down the fence and unfortunately he taught his nephew to do the same.
Mac was faithful to a fault. After I had surgery last year, he never left me and I can't count the number of times I almost fell over him because he was always beside me. He would supervise my shower in the morning, lying on the bathmat until I was ready to get dressed and then he would supervise my getting dressed following me from the bathroom to the closet and back numerous times. He was also fiercely protective of his property and one could happily go out and leave the doors unlocked knowing that it would be a very brave soul who would open the door with Mac the other side. He was reticent with strangers and had to be introduced properly before he would accept visitors
Mac also was an absolutely reliable alarm clocek. He never failed to wake me at the same time every morning. He would come upstairs and I would hear his tail banging against the bookcase and before long there would be a cold nose in my face. We would come down and I might make a cup of tea and return to bed for a while, but it wasn't long before the cold nose was in my face yet again, this time he wanted his share of my tea. He loved tea and even coffee, provided it came from my mug!! I will miss this habit of his more than anything. The girls and Hintza are not early birds and are reluctant to get out of bed in the mornings.
Mac was ill at the end; his kidneys were shutting down and he had a horrible habit of swallowing nylon socks which he would then throw up with a bunch of unspeakable material. He did this last Thursday and I think perhaps it was the catalyst for his system to shut down. In the end, probably it was renal failure which was his undoing. He was 12 and had led an active and healthy life and I know he is now painfree and running with his family at the Rainbow Bridge.
Those of use left behind will miss him.
Caroline
