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IN 1993. |
In Memory of the Best Running Partner Ever
BY BARBARA RUSHMAN
It was a full year this past February since I relieved my sweet Sunchi of her pain. This past Christmas was the first in 17 years that I have spent without her. It was obvious the previous Christmas that it would be her last. She was very advanced in years and getting more feeble each day. I think about how much I miss her and that the two young dogs I have now don’t fill the empty space in my heart. She was trying so hard to live for me although her body was failing badly. She was deaf, couldn’t see well, couldn’t go to the bathroom without falling over, was losing control of her bowels and bladder in the house, and had trouble bending to reach her food. Yet she still fought to live for me.
A little over 17 years ago, October--October 10, 1992 to be exact--I went to St. Hubert’s Animal Welfare Center looking for a dog to become my running partner. I had an idea of what would make a good running partner so I had specific attributes in mind. A lean long-legged short-coated light-colored dog with lots of energy and a friendly disposition. I envisioned a solid golden color.
The first dog I looked at met all the physical attributes but didn’t seem to connect with me, being more interested in her surroundings than us. Passing through the kennel again, a quiet, spotted four-month-old puppy caught my eye and we decided to visit with her. Once out of her kennel run, she lit up with energy and wanted to play but was very mouthy and nipped at my hands with her razor-sharp baby teeth. Her kennel name was Penny and it was fitting with her reddish brown spots and freckles. They said she was a Brittany mix, a breed I didn’t know since I was just beginning my journey into the wonderful world of dogs. I knew so little back then about breeds and dog behavior. We decided to take her home. Little did we know what a great dog she would be and how our lives would change.
Since she didn’t know her kennel name, we thought we should rename her. We experimented with different names. I had hoped to call her Grete after the great marathon runner Grete Waitz. I wanted my dogs to have runner names, but that didn’t pan out until our fourth dog, our first male who we called Ryan (Hall). Sunchi’s ears flapped like Grete’s pigtails when she ran. And she could run forever. But she never really seemed to respond to that name. We experimented with American Indian names but nothing stuck. I was scanning a Papiamento dictionary (Papiamento is the language spoken in the Netherlands Antilles) and stumbled on the word for kiss: Sunchi. When she was being nippy, I would hold her down and hold her mouth closed. She started sticking her tongue out to lick in what seemed to be an apology. I encouraged that with “good girl” and her nipping gave way to kissing. She became a very affectionate dog, thus the name was fitting.
On her adoption day, I took her for her first run, just around my 7/10-mile block. She wasn’t used to a leash, not having any formal training in her young four-month-old life. She was running left and running right and stopped short a few times almost causing me to trip. But she showed energy and enthusiasm, and the promise of good things to come. As the weeks progressed, she became a more efficient runner, now taking a straight line and running at my side or in front. Five or six weeks after adoption I took her to her first race, the Great Swamp 5K Run, held in Basking Ridge, NJ. The more she ran, the more she loved it and got excited when I dressed to run. And the more she went to races, the more she loved to run in races.
I continued to run her longer distances and perhaps she did too much too early in her young life. She never refused but it may have led to more severe arthritis in her later life. I had her in a 15K, the Midland Run, in May 1993 when she was not yet one year. I struggled in that run on a hot day but she was still bouncy and energetic. Her dog sitter took her on a 17-mile marathon training run a few months later, her longest run, while we were in Michigan with family. She ran all my races with me until 1996 when I started getting resistance from races that didn’t want dogs in their events.
When we had Sunchi 1 ½ years, we decided she needed a companion. We found a three-month-old black-lab mix that also was quiet in her kennel run. We named her Oreo. In her assessment, they said not to place her in a home with small children because of her dominant tendencies. She was fine with Sunchi for about five years, then the dominance started to rear its ugly head and infrequent attacks ensued. We learned that Oreo really should have been in a one-dog household but did our best to deal with the issue by taking such steps as feeding them separately and keeping them both well exercised. Sunchi took to sleeping in our walk-in closet to hide from Oreo. I put a dog bed on my husband John’s side of the closet, causing all his pants and ties to be even more covered with blond dog hair. By the time Oreo was 11, we had to keep them totally separated by gates because the attacks became more frequent. Sunchi lived upstairs, Oreo downstairs. Sunchi was terrified of Oreo. For months after Oreo died of cancer, Sunchi would visually check out the downstairs of the house from the stairs before she would have the courage to come down.
Sunchi breathed new life into my running. I was in my mid-40s when I adopted her. My pace was slowing. I ran with my club every Saturday morning and met friends during the week but more and more I found myself running alone. And I found running alone not fun. Six months before I had adopted her, my friends talked me into marathon training. I had run one marathon in my early 30s and it was made palatable because I had training partners to encourage me and keep me company on those long runs. When I was finding myself alone on the long runs, I said to myself: This isn’t fun. I don’t have anything to prove. I’ve done a marathon already and probably can’t improve on my time. Because I was in pretty good shape but didn’t want to continue those long training runs, I traded the idea of a marathon for two half-marathons: The Duchess County Half-Marathon and the Jersey Shore Half-Marathon. The day after the Jersey Shore was the day I adopted Sunchi. From that day on, I no longer ran alone. And from that day on, I enjoyed running again.
It was just fun to watch her, how she ran with such ease, her ears bouncing up and down even though she tried to hold them close to her head for aerodynamics. Her eyes darting here and there to check out everything, just happy to be alive. She loved every minute of it no matter the weather. Hot, cold, rain, it didn’t matter. What joy it was to stop and let her watch a deer or meet a horse behind a fence or check out tracks in the snow. She taught me how to enjoy the simple things.
When Sunchi was about five, we became interested in the sport of agility and began classes. John trained Oreo and I trained Sunchi. We began to read each other even better. She learned every nuance in my body language and vice versa. She was awesome in the agility ring, qualifying for nationals that first year. But by year’s end, it was becoming obvious that it was just not fun anymore, that something hurt. Instead of being her happy self, she would sniff the ground in avoidance or run out of the ring after a few obstacles to tell me something was wrong. After trying anti-inflammatories, we had her tested for hip dysplacia. The tests came back positive so we pulled her from agility competition and I reduced her running, both frequency and distance. She was just turning seven. Running seemed to still be easy for her so after being conservative for a few months, I got her back to a maximum of six miles, no more than four times/week. She was fine with that. It was me who became less inclined to run, not her and our distance reduced over time to four miles which she was able to do well past her 14th birthday. She also got back into agility, but never competed again. I discovered that she could still participate but only for fun at reduced jump heights and shorter courses. Her last agility outing was a fun match when she was almost 16. I put the jumps at four inches (her competition height was 24) and did not ask her to do any obstacles she had to climb; just low jumps and tunnels. There is video on my Web site and you can see she is having fun (http://www.houndsandharriers.com/hhmydogs.htm).
After Oreo passed away, we added a new dog to our family. Daisy was the only adult dog we’ve adopted. Since she knew her name, we kept it. We think she’s a Leopard Cur, a close relative of the Catahoula, only smaller. At a year old, she was full height but thin and the smallest of the four we’ve had and she had gorgeous white-blue eyes. Daisy has lots of issues with strangers and as much as she’s improved over the four years we’ve had her, she’s still very much a work in progress. Two years later, we took on a third dog, a four-month Brittany pup, our Ryan Hall. He’s tall and leggy for a Brit. Sunchi was turning 16 and we didn’t expect to be a three-dog household for long.
When race directors started taking issue with my Sunchi in their races, my friend, Judy Ahlers, planted the seed in my brain to create a race for Sunchi and all those dogs that loved to run. Both Oreo and Sunchi would get so excited at the start of a race, they couldn’t control their excitement. They would get impatient and sometimes bark and lunge to get going. They would settle once we took a few steps. They just wanted to be among all those runners, or rather be in front of all those runners. I could only imagine they thought they were on a hunt chasing a rabbit or some prey and wanted to get there first. I must say, they would help my time a bit too, gaining perhaps an inch or two with each stride.
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RUSHMAN RUNNING THE HOUNDS AND HARRIERS COURSE IN 1998. BENITA SHOR PHOTO |
Sunchi participated in the event every year while she was alive, each year with a different partner. At first, I put her with fast partners to see what she could do. Her best finish was 18:01 in fifth place in 1998. When she was diagnosed with dysplacia, I chose partners that were a little slower (7:30s) but when she seemed to do fine, I let her run with Kelly Vanasse and Jane Parks, both standout women who finished within a few seconds of 20:00. When Sunchi was 12, I paired her with an eight-minute miler, at 13 a nine-minute miler, and at 14 a 10-minute miler.
As she aged I added a veteran class award in the three-mile run for dogs over 10 and then a second event for senior dogs that couldn’t run three miles anymore. The senior dog event is only 200 ft. long and covers the finish stretch of the longer run. I don’t hold it as a race, but rather allow one dog at a time run or walk to the finish or be carried if need be for part of the way. The dogs are individually announced to a cheering crowd and all get an award ribbon. At 15 and 16, Sunchi participated in the senior dog event.
I stopped running her for exercise when she was about 14 ½. She let me know, like she did with agility, that she just didn’t want to do it anymore. She would pretend that she really needed to sniff or pee. Her stops got so frequent, it was impossible to get in a rhythm. She was still able to take long walks of four miles for a while, then three miles. She was still capable of two-mile walks when she passed her 16th birthday. That summer she contracted vestibular disease and never totally recovered. She lost the ability to walk around the block and as she declined. I didn’t take her beyond my property line.
Near the end was a very sad time for me. Sunchi lost over 10 pounds and everything she did was an effort. She was still willing to eat because the steroids she was on gave her an appetite but nothing stuck. I used a Ruff Wear harness on her so I could help her up steps and prevent her from falling over when she went to the bathroom. I could pick her up by the harness even though she was a good-sized dog. One Wednesday last February 2009 we took our other two dogs to agility classes. We were out about three hours and came home to find her lying on her stomach, legs splayed. She was lying in a puddle of pee and poo. When I righted her, she had trouble standing. I had to admit then, that I couldn’t allow that to happen again. I had to let her go with dignity. I had John call our vet the next day and planned to put her down the following Monday. I slept on the floor with her each night until then and held her close and whispered a lot of “I Love Yous.”
Daisy and Ryan now accompany me on all my runs, and of course never miss a Hounds and Harriers Run. They are both competing at agility, Daisy, an elite competitor and a truly gifted athlete, and Ryan a novice competitor who will follow the tradition of my other dogs. But there will always be that empty space that no one can fill. Sunchi was truly special in so many ways. There are so many intangibles that I can’t put in words about how sweet she was, how she loved everyone, both people and dogs. She even seemed to calm dog-aggressive dogs by diverting her eyes and by her non-threatening posture. If Sunchi hadn’t been such a great dog, we may never have adopted another. If it wasn’t for her, I would have stopped running 15 years ago. And of course, there would be no Hounds and Harriers Run. I don’t know if I’ve really done justice to our bond. But I promised Freddi (RG’s editor) that I would write a dedication a year ago and here it is.
Now the race I started for her is heading into its 14th year. It didn’t die with her but is really Sunchi living on. I’m sure she watched in approval this past fall. She was sitting there watching with all the other dogs that have passed on and shared her love of this race.