Raksha Akmenu Gele - the passing of a great dog

Raksha, our second Caucasian Ovcharka, our Sweet Girl, passed away on Saturday, April 25, 2015.
Akmenu Gele means "Stone Heart," but Raksha was sweet, kind to those she loved, funny, full of life, brave and strong. Our sweet girl. My girl. I cannot say it often enoough, and I said it to her every day, "My Girl."

Born in Lithuania, on June 3rd 2002, Rocky lived a long and healthy life, just barely missing her 13th birthday.

This is what I posted on my facebook page, along with 50 or more photos of our beautiful girl.

~ 
Her name is Raksha Akmenu Gele (Raksha Stone Heart). She was born in Lithuania in June 2002, and moved to the United States in late July 2002. She stopped in Texas, with Kat Thomasson and her son and dogs, as the airliines could not carry dogs in the heat. Next, she went to Oakland, California and stayed with Galina Chernikova until I could drive north and get her. Galina fell in love with her and so did everyone who met her. Next, I came along and picked her up. She rode home with Kazbek and me. She lived with me, my pack and my sister in the desert for two-+ years, then moved to Montana, where she had two beautiful litters of pups, boys and girls (where are they now?). But soon, we loved and missed her too much and wanted to care for her, so Kat retrieved her and took her home for awhile in Idaho. When Kat moved to the not-so-far-away Vegas area, I was able to drive to Las Vegas, pick Rocky up, and bring her back home. She then lived with us by the beach in California, until - at long last - we moved to our little place with acreage here on the Central Coast. 

RAKSHA LOVED IT HERE. She told me "this is my favorite" of all the beautiful places she and we have lived. Here, on the Central Coast, she helped foster our puppy, Yanqui, teaching him that the gates and fences need a watchful eye and it is important to bark at cats hidden in the bushes. She taught him that substantial dowagers like herself were to be deeply respected but it was okay to have a few laughs, even sometimes at her expense. She taught her Papi (whom she nicknamed "Biscuit" due to his propensity to give her treats) that you have to respect a CO and if you want something from them it's okay to be firm, but a heavy hand gets a heavy answer from a CO. She taught her Mamma too many things to be listed. Too many. Brilliant, beautiful, affectionate, silly, a banana thief, brave, powerful, strong, faithful. Faithful. 

We all hate to lose our friends; and we hate to lose all our friends. But Rocky is and was the last of an era. Together, we walked as two wolves, deep and safe in the forest or running free on the prairie. She taught me that.
~

Our beautiful girl had so much to offer, and was such a great friend, protector, companion, and source of inspiration. Source sometimes, too, of exasperation (oh, those bananas! She would steal them, peel them, and leave a greasy black mess in her bed that was all the forensics needed to catch a thief! How I often wondered, "where did the bananas go? Did we eat them all already?"). Raksha was an enormous part of my life for almost 13 years. How do you say goodbye to that?

Rocky changed all who knew her, simply by sharing the gift of her unique Dogness. She taught us to be patient, to focus on happiness, to be strong against pain or fear, to trust in love. My Raksha. My Sweet Girl. I shared her, happily, with my husband, and sometimes with friends, but she was always - and, to me, only - My Raksha.

Love forever,
your mom

Rocky age 12

Rocky with Jillian

Young Raksha with myself and Friday the cat

Raksha in front of the kennels (Zoe and Lily behind)

Raksha wishes everyone a Very Merry Christmas!

Raksha's roadwork

Raksha, @age 6, in Idaho

My Sweet Girl

on the deck in Santa Cruz

Waiting for the neighbor to make her day! (Let's Bark!)

the Pedigree with a photo of Mama - beautiful!

2009

2011

always a gal with a good figure!

Rocky about age 1, Kazbek about age 4 behind

a large puppy at age 1

still beautiful at age 9, april 2011

February 2010

Doing Sit-Stays with the cat

with the 4 mo. old puppy (sitting in the baby pool) age 10 1/2

Happy Birthday, Everybody! (Why does she do this to us?)

hiking in the river bed

July 4th, 2009

Beautiful!

Whassup Mrs.?

Serene

Yanqui and Raksha 2014

I See You and You See Me

Raksha - artist's model!

Raksha (f) and Kazbek (b), as artistic muses

Baby Raksha, and parents, Hanka VelikiHan (top-rt) and Aton (bottom-L)

TIME AND THE DOG

I believe in animal-to-human communication and have often experienced it. My fave book on the subject,"Letters to Strongheart" (J. Allen Boone) was written in the 1950s. 

If a big "dog thought" hits me -- typically something about canines that in my conscious mind I have never contemplated - I sometimes query the dog:   "did you just send me that idea? Then show me."  With the Caucasus Dogs especially, I find that, when challenged for proof, they respond by holding eye contact like your mother did when she explained the facts of life to you. Occasionally, dogs may underscore the answering stare with an approach or a nose bump. This mute, self-possessed reaction to the Big Share can seem so very apropos, so very on-target, that it gives me a shiver.

One of the things Rocky "explained" to me concerned the "7 years to one year ratio" - the general arithmetical construct by which we delineate their time on earth in relation to our own. Dogs live their lives and pass so quickly, while we go on, that it seems to us a tragedy that such wonderful lives should be cut so short. Rocky shared with me, however, that while we humans live on the fast track (picture this as an old silent movie, speeded up), dogs and other animals actually experience their lives in what we humans would perceive as slow-motion, if we use the film metaphor again.

So dogs live entire full long lives, just as we do, but WE are going so fast that we miss out on much of what is happening around us.

When we were Neanderthal, or even tribal, and living past 35 was unusual, we and animals were also more in tune. Life moved at a natural pace. We might say, "a slower pace" but that would not cover the immensity in the difference between today's harried lifestyle, the absurd multi-tasking model [go faster, accomplish less and do so with less accuracy], and the many vehicles and conveniences we utilize in order to "be there" mentally, while we are "still here" physically.

After all, which seems more content: a well-maintained dog living a natural life, or a coddled human teenager, living a life of asphalt and electricity - so disconnected from the earth that to simply see a horse in a pasture has become an intense experience.

The second proof that "dogs, in their way, live longer than we think" came while I was watching one of those "all about dogs" shows on television. The segment concerned the question of what physical advantage allows dogs to catch things so well - frisbees, or even birds out of the sky? To answer this, a dog catching a Frisbee thrown high appeared on-screen. In slow motion, the dog could be observed tracking every miniscule movement of the Frisbee as it fluttered and flew.  The dog stood still for a moment, watching as the frisbee began to fly, then the dog lined itself up at the place where the frisbee was going to fall, not where the frisbee was, in air, as he took off in pursuit.

Picture yourself on LSD, watching everything around you unfolding as a flower unfolds, slowly over a 24-hour period. That's the way dogs experience the world. Well, that's what Rocky told me, anyway. And I, for one, believe her.