Mica

May 11, 2000 to July 18, 2011

We said goodbye to our sweet and dear Mica on Monday, July 18, 2011 . We have known this day was coming for a very long time; this dog had escaped the inevitable many times, but still the pain is raw and real.

Mica has been with us her entire life since leaving her litter. She has been a constant force in our lives for that decade plus and has shown energy, strength, and resilience beyond any we could have imagined.

Even at the end, with the pain of a body that was just giving out on her, she was still that strong spirit we had always known. If it’s possible for a dog to live a life of grace and giving, she did. She gave of her energy and of her life in service to us all. In exchange, we gave her the best care we could. We agonized over this decision and probably waited too long, asking her to live some days in more pain than she should so we could be sure. At the end, we live with the tears and the pain and gave her the ultimate act of compassion that we can give: relief from pain, freedom from a body that had failed her and a promise that she will not be forgotten.

From the beginning she was a curious, strong and determined dog. So independent-minded and unwilling to agree easily to boundaries, that she soon earned the nickname “ILS” for Independent Little Shit. Mary began immediately teaching her the search game and Mica progressed quickly starting by learning tracking and eventually moving on to air scenting. She first certified in area searching (air scenting) and then moved quickly on to get certified in Avalanche and then Human Remains Detection. Through it all, she showed a strong dedication to her work and this same fiery independent streak. Mary would sometimes describe Mica’s approach to a search problem as the “leave me at the gate” approach which means Mica would leave her at the gate or start of a problem, go work it out and then come back and show Mary. Mica’s attitude was pretty much summed up as “you losers stay here until I’ve figured this all out.”

Mica responded with Mary (or was it the other way around) on a huge number of calls in both Nevada and California during her search career. She was always ready, always watching and waiting to see what might happen. I’m pretty sure she figured out the tones on the pagers we carried meant something was afoot and she also knew that certain jackets and pants meant an outing was going to happen.

Surveying Day 2 Search Area Hoover Wilderness

Among her favorite things were water and mud. She would walk out of her way to find some water to get into and was just about as happy as can be there. This was quite a contrast to our other dog at time who would go out of her way to avoid water, except maybe to dip her toes in the creek. When we used to frequently walk the dogs up Whites or Thomas creek, Mica would avail herself of any opportunity to get in the water, no matter the temperature. This may have been the inspiration to build the dog shower into our home when we were designing it.

Sign Says (essentially) "No Dogs Allowed." Does Not Apply

Another thing Mica loved was flying. She would very happily get into helicopters and ride with the doors open and even in training rappelled out of them. She was always amazingly relaxed during these exercises or flights and had to be carefully restrained or she might have just jumped out the doors. I’m not sure she quite got the concept of how high off the ground she really was.

Waiting for the helo ride out from 3 days above Hetch Hetchy

Sled Transport into a search area.

Among her many successes is, we believe, the deepest ever find by a cadaver dog. No qualifiers on that. I can’t give to many details on it, other than to say it was a buried in vertical mine shaft and it was eventually dug out by a huge excavator, but she gave the initial indication 65 feet above where the body was eventually found. Sixty-five feet through dirt. Can’t touch that.

She could read maps too

Despite all her successes, she had to overcome a lot to get there. Mostly this was due to being dealt a really bum hand when it came to her body. The mind was willing, the nose was clearly capable, but the body just wasn’t all there. When she was less than a year old, Mary noticed that she would get very sore and almost limping after playing in deep snow. This was followed by a diagnosis of hip dysplasia and surgery to repair it. Despite our concerns about her, she just about tried to jump over the Veterinarian’s counter when we went to pick her up, so she clearly came out pretty ok. They surgeries were done about a month apart to let her heal one side before doing the other (both hips were bad) and, unfortunately one of the screws holding one plate broke and that whole plate had to be removed, so that was three major surgeries to fix two hips. Of course that break had to be discovered in Las Vegas a full day’s drive away from the vets who did her surgery, on a trip to see Japhy and SAS get married. A long drive back and a trip to the vet and a flight back to Arizona and I made the wedding, just barely.

Off the helo at the landing zone Yosemite backcountry

Hanging out under the helo. Note how relaxed Mica is.

Hooking up to the "jungle penetrator" lift

Helo "butt shot"

In addition to that, Mica had very severe allergies to food that would manifest as oily skin, itchiness and GI irritation. She had to be on prednisone her entire life to control the allergies which caused its own set of trouble with immune system suppression and making her very hungry all the time. Still, no commercial dog food would work and we found that only chicken or turkey protein was tolerable, but not perfect. That led to a life-time of hand-made food and supplements to keep her fed. It took some time to get the mix right but especially toward the later years of her life, I really think the simple, healthful food was what kept her doing so well for so long.

Mica, Mary (white shirt) and Entourage (just SWAT and bomb dudes. Note: Not training)

Her next major issue came on slowly and in the early fall of 2006 we realized she was having difficulty controlling her hind legs. Another round of tests, including CT scans convinced us that the lowest disk in her back (L5-S1) was compressing and impinging on the nerves. A major surgery, and weeks and weeks of physical therapy actually brought her back maybe even stronger than before. She was back and working by the beginning of 2007 and was able to continue serving until about a year after the first disk went, the next one up her back started failing. Another major surgery fixed that, but this time the recovery was much slower. About 24 hours after bringing her home, she would not walk and we had to take her back and get her carried into the clinic. A change in medicines including using some slightly experimental pain therapy got her back. This time the physical therapy was more focused on getting her comfortable and able to enjoy her retirement as we quickly realized this was the end of her working career. I got to spend a lot of time with her at physical therapy and regularly swam in the endless pool with her. This was great for her since she really loved swimming and it was really helpful for her.

Rubble Pile training, 2006

After that one (or two, never quite determined) major bouts of pancreatitis and two stomach surgeries to remove things she ate (one slipper, one sock) and some gastroenteritis kept things interesting. After the first pancreatitis we took her to UC Davis and got a specially designed diet for her. Now we were cooking her chicken and yams for food. She really enjoyed the food, but it took a lot of work. One look at how excited she was to eat, every day, made it all worthwhile.

Not that she was all challenges. Even as late as last fall she was still active enough to play the search game. I recorded this video when Mary was out playing with her one afternoon. You can see she moves a bit rough, but the joy in her behavior is still clear. She loved the game.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Starting intermittently with her first back surgery and continuing nearly full-time after her real retirement in 2007 she became my nearly constant office companion. This was a real second career for her as a therapy dog for my office. The wild, fast, and independent dog of her youth has evolved into a strong, calm presence that so many people responded to in such a positive way. I can recall any number of rather stiff, formal people, getting right down to Mica’s level and petting her head and talking to her in that silly, almost baby-talk voice. She attended departmental meetings and, as always, had this strong, peaceful presence that everyone responded to positively.

This winter and even into this rainy spring, I kept bringing her to work every day. She’d go out on the small lawn in front of our building to do her business and as the days warmed, I really thought I saw her energy improve. Then one day, she was out walking and it was warm and sunny and she just buried her nose into the grass and sniffed and then laid down and pushed her shoulder in and rolled up on her back and it just looked so much like an absolute expression of joy, like she was saying, “spring is really here!” As hard as it is to say good-bye in the warm summer days, it would have been much worse in the cold winter’s days.

I am eternally grateful for the many years I got to spend many hours with her only feet away from me; many years where I only had to walk those few feet to touch her and hold her and talk to her. While those memories will help with the pain, that immediacy also makes the contrast to now all that more powerful and apparent. As I knew the days we had with her were shortening, I took every opportunity to look closely at her often, to articulate, even only to myself, thanks for her being part of all of our lives. I try to do that again now, and it’s hard. Even knowing, even having all the warning and time we did, it doesn’t change the reality of life now. May you truly rest in peace, Mica. We all know you have earned it.

Peace

The Eagle Rock Fire

I was supposed to be spending today racing the Barn Burner, but this little inconvenience called the Eagle Rock fire put a stop to that. The fire was first reported Wednesday morning as about 30 acres. By the time I was packing to head there on Thursday it was 3,000 acres and growing. I think the it got within a few miles of the course. The issue was as much air quality as danger from the fire. I can’t help but wonder if there was some karma given the name of the event. Too bad, I was hoping to get some racing in this weekend. At least they decided to scrub it Thursday at noon so I didn’t end up doing 1000 miles of driving for nothing. So, today I went out and hurt myself on the road bike. about 4 hours, mostly going up and down Mt Rose highway, 15 min intervals at a time, pushing that lactate threshold. Did six of them in two sets of three; about 8 min between intervals, and about an hour of riding between the two sets. I know the suffering now means better performance later, but still doesn’t mean I like it any better. The reward is 4 or 5 hours of dirt riding tomorrow, so much sweeter than this.

I also changed the motivational line on my handlebar. Now it says: “Pain is not what you get, pain is what you give. It’s all about what you’re giving.” That from my former coach and current AZ state road champion, Snake. Readers of the Drunkcyclist will know him. Ask pyroflopic for more details, he knows Snake well. For now my throat still hurts from sucking in all that air to get this done today. Would have rather been racing.

The Barn Burner may get rescheduled to September. I hope I can do it, as the middle of September I’m off to Costa Rica to pre-ride La Ruta. Or much of it anyway. I’ll post a note when they reschedule, if you are interested in going. Meanwhile, I’ve posted a bunch more helmet-cam video to youtube: http://www.youtube.com/user/lowco2reno

The latest one is here:

RenoslashTahoe is set to remain Flavor Country for the indefinite and immediate future as the American River Fire Complex might not be contained until OCTOBER!!!! That spells bad news for people who like aerobic exercise, the outdoors and lung health. But what are you going to do? You can’t blame California for everything. They’re doing the best they can. It does make our Nevada smoking ban seem a little meaningless. Why can’t we be down wind of Humboldt county?!!?

More links:
News 10
The Union
Sac Bee (potentially lethal smoke, YAY!!)

-M

You never know where you’re going to be when shit catches up to you, but you’d better hope it isn’t while you’re watching 10-year-olds lay the trick shit down on a bigger kicker than you got the stones for.

This looks to be the final score for the season. I’ll get a rematch next year. Now to call Pyrofloptic and TheRestlessApe and tell them they are a 2 man for Cool now…

Final diagnosis: Large tear of the lateral miniscus with no other damage. YAY! Some people rip their pants when they squat down, I rip cartilage. How’s that for extreme? Thanks fo Smella for coming to rescue me and taking care of me all afternoon AND evening, and Rob for hobbling me down the hill, and D.LaP for hanging with me in the CandyAss Ward and the Adkins for bringing me pizza.

-M