A Beagle Named Sammy

It is fitting to write about Sammy right after Mandy.  They were siblings.  Separated in age by many years.  No, there was probably no genetics shared between them, but those two misfits loved each other one minute, then fought to blood the next, exactly like human siblings.

Sammy came from the same humane shelter as Mandy.  I was working and going to school full time so the right thing to say was that it probably wasn't the best time to have one dog let alone two.  Instead, I thought Mandy would be happier by not being alone all the time I was at school or work; besides, I really wanted another dog.  I was away a lot, but my hectic driving schedule made it pretty easy to stop at home frequently.
The shelter again had several beagles available.  One was a very sweet beagle mixed with a little bit of basset.  She was scheduled to be in the newspaper as one of their ad dogs in the near future.  The policy of the shelter was that dogs in the news paper had to be available for a few weeks after being in the paper and then if there was multiple parties interested, there was a complicated choice system.  Net, it would be many weeks, if I would have gotten her.  Sammy on the other hand was the runt of a litter of sickly beagle pups that came in.  All the other pups died shortly after being brought in but somehow Sammy did not, even though she was very small and had a hernia.  I'm not sure how I could have said no to her.
After the usual hoops to jump through, I was able to pick her up on a late Friday.  I didn't want her to have another weekend in the shelter, so I picked her up on the way to school for a night class.  The temperature was such that she would be fine in the truck while I was in class, and it was scheduled to be a short class.
On the way to school, Sammy squirmed her way out of her cardboard box and jumped all over, the puppy that she was.  Distracted by this, I locked my keys in the vehicle as I leaving for class.  I had a friend who was a police officer at the school, he stopped by after I was able to call the security office. He made short order of the door with a slim jim and I got my keys.  Luckily, Brandon did not see that I had a puppy in the car.

After class, I got back to my car.  Not surprisingly, Sammy was not in her box.  She had pooped in my truck as well.  Luckily, it was a pretty awful truck with a plastic interior so clean-up was not an issue.
I went home and after the typical dog smelling, Mandy and Sammy quickly bonded.  Sammy was probably the easiest dog to house train, likely because Mandy had learned the rules, and helped.  I'm not sure if this is actually possible, but any time Sammy had an accident, Mandy barked like crazy, "Don't do that in the house!  It makes 'em mad!"

Mandy and Sammy quickly became best friends.  They slept most of the day in a small bed; there were actually two beds, but they were always in the same one.  They shared food, but only out of different bowls.  They fought about everything.  Both dogs had split ears (Sammy's were far worse) from the fights, those long floppy beagle ears are very vulnerable.  The fights only lasted a few minutes and were followed by dog-apologies.  In one notable case after moving to Ohio, Sammy and Mandy were with me on the way home from running errands, with a stop for pigs ears at the pet store.  The pig ears in the bag instigated a fight that ended up under the brake pedal.  Luckily, it didn't turn out as poorly as it could have.

Sammy was definitely the trouble maker.  The dog gates meant nothing to her.  Two dog gates on top of each other meant nothing to her.  There was nothing she couldn't find her way around or through.  She learned to open cupboards to extract toys - blender, a full container of Crisco, dog food.  I had to put child locks on all the cupboards for years because of her.  Any door that was ajar was completely open to her deft paws.
In the apartment after moving to Ohio, Sammy and Mandy had to be tied up in the kitchen when home alone.  Sammy found a way to open a drawer, climb on the counter, share the dog treats and go to the other side.  Her leash was just long enough to not hang her and she dug through the drywall, creating a shelf to get a paw on, back onto the counter and to the correct side.  Imagine the surprise when I came home to the dog treat jar talking (Snausages, Snausages...) a hole in the wall, and two innocent looking beagles.  It was never a dull moment with her.
She loved the squirrels in the back yard.  She would spend hours stalking them, wanting to come in and peer out the back door until they returned from the safety of the trees, to be let out and stalk them again.  I don't remember her ever catching one, but she never tired of this as a young dog.  Even as she got older she had a lust for all small mammals.  I tried a couple times to take her to hunt bunnies, but she had an innate fear of guns.  I let her run around while I unsuccessfully hunted.  She was happier that way.

I got more beagles through the years, to a total of 4 for quite a while.  Sammy got crabbier as she got older.  Her perfect world was the two people in her life and Mandy, that's it.  She tolerated some of the other dogs, notably Dixie, but had an obvious distaste for Lucky and Soda.  She really didn't even like other people very much.  In one case when there was a house full of people, Sammy broke the rules to go upstairs to get away from all the people.  Unlike most of my dogs, she hated the vet, and kenneling was terrible for her.
Through all this Mandy and Sammy had a bond none of my other beagles have ever had.  When Mandy  died, I hung her collar from the rear view mirror in my truck where it remains today.  A few weeks later, Sammy was in the truck and craned her neck to put her nose on the collar and smell it.  A beagle always looks a little sad and Sammy was more expressive than most, but there is no doubt she missed Mandy.

Sammy aged like us all.  She pursued small mammals less, and looked more for opportunities to sleep in a comfortable spot or sit by the kerosene heater in the winter.  She started to go down hill quickly.  A trip to the vet concluded her liver and kidneys were not acting normally.  There were three options, expensive treatment which was likely to do little, put her down, or do nothing.  She still had that Sammy spark, so I couldn't put her down.  She hated the vet, so I didn't want to let her live her last few months as a permanent patient, I believe that is selfishly cruel to do to any dog.  She went home and we tried to make her as comfortable as possible.  A day or so before she died, she curled up on the couch with me, something she didn't do very often as getting on the couch was not easy for her.  I'd like to believe it was her goodbye.

Sammy was the only dog I've gotten as a puppy.  She and Mandy were best friends, and in many ways my best friends; they were both with me through some rough times.  She was probably the most mischievous dog I've ever had, but never in a deliberate way; she was a total free spirit.  Anybody would be lucky to have had a dog like Sammy in their life.  I know I was.