The Invincible Vince

Vince came to us at about 9 years of age in May, 2012. He must have been 15-16 years old when he left us today. He's seen a lot of foster dogs come and go, and a lot of resident dogs come and go. Vince never doubted his place in the world - this was his home. We used to joke that Vince would probably bury us all and take on a new set of homeowners who moved in when we were gone. It seemed he was invincible. I will let his pictures tell his story.

This was Vince on the day I picked him up from the SPCA
in Charlottesville. He had been adopted out from there as a pup
and returned twice through no fault of his own. His basic
personality was already carved in stone. He hated being restrained,
he hated vets, he was scared of storms, and he had a strong work ethic.
Vince was loyal to a fault. He was going to be your right hand dog. 

We brought Vince's collar home today. It looks
old and crusty, but that actually says a lot about
the dog. I didn't take it off of him often, I washed
it even less often. Some of his bling is from vacations
we took many years ago, Vince rarely lost anything.

The last few months things have been getting harder on Vince,
so it was nice to see this picture of him with a smile on his face.
That's something I hadn't seen in a while, but Vince still had a
steely determination to get up and keep going and do what
needed to be done.

Vince has probably always been underrepresented
in pictures on the blog. He was more of background
dog, but he was always there, ever present in our
world. He represented us in the neighborhood for
many years, marking the neighbors' mailboxes and
keeping non-resident dogs, cats, chickens, and
Jehovah's Witnesses at bay.

I'm not actually sure who the shepherd in the lead is here, but
that's Maya right behind him, and that's Vince coming up from
the rear. Vince has usually been our smallest dog, but he was
a herding dog who took his job seriously. He would run Theo
out to the dog yard in the morning and make sure he went where
he was supposed to, even though Theo was three times his size.
Vince occasionally bit off more than he could chew, but he was
tenacious and would never back down, even when he should.

Vince was a senior dog when he got here, but he hardly aged
a day in the next six years. He was looking a little rough towards
the end, but he was still basically the same dog. Vince never
walked. He moved at a fast trot right up to the day he died.
He never laid down on the job, he was always "on."

Vince had a few different names with different owners over
the years. We always called him Vince, or Vinny, but it really
didn't matter what you called him. You really didn't have to call
him, Vince knew the routine, both his own and that of every
other dog and person in the household. Vince was our butler.

I found this picture today when I was going
through the blog looking for pictures of Vince.
It made me realize that he had indeed aged,
because I haven't seen Vince do this in a long
time. I don't think he was able to anymore, but
he did enjoy a roll in spring grass like any other
dog back in the day.

Vince was a stickler for rules. He believed in one dog per bed
and he didn't like sharing or being intruded upon by other
dogs. He would never fight, but he would grumble and get up
and move if another dog moved into his personal space.

Vince's tail carriage said a lot about him.
It was always up, carried high and curled, he
was always on alert, ready for anything.

This is one of my last pictures of Vince, right next to my bed
where he slept every night. The one dog per bed rule applied
most strongly here and I would occasionally have to move an
intruding nose, feet, or tail of the dog who slept on the bed
adjacent to his if they were invading Vince's space.
If another dog tried to take Vince's bed, he would pace around
the room, refusing to settle down elsewhere, and I'd have to
made the interloper get up and move so Vince could have his spot.
Rules are rules.

Vince was no great looker, but he was a great dog. He was one of a kind, and we will miss his kind.

Because Vince had an extreme aversion to
veterinary care, and because he lived so well
for so many years with minimal vet visits,
we decided to more or less let nature take
its course with him. He had a protruding
lump on his right flank that grew over the
years, and I expect he was full of cancer, but
he lived a long life and a normal life right
up to the end. His legs failed him to the point
that he was having difficulty getting around,
but there were probably half a dozen other
problems waiting in the wings. He was still
eating, running, and herding the other dogs
up to the very end. He was tough and would
never have called it quits. I made the call for
him, because I thought he needed the rest
but would never take it on his own.