Madeline Milkshake

 

October 11, 1996, the last time I woke up at home without a four-legged friend asking to be let out. That was until this morning. Last evening our Maddie made her trip to the rainbow bridge to catch back up with her brother Teton, who made the journey the previous year.  Madeline Milkshake Steele was a neurotic, beautiful golden lab, a month shy of turning 15. 

Our introduction to Maddie all started one afternoon when Jill was driving the girls home from school and her phone pinged. Jill asked the girls to see what that notification was to which they said, ‘Ginger had babies!’, “Who’s Ginger?” Jill asked not knowing the context that they were actually puppies. Ginger was our neighbor’s dog. Once home Jill and the girls visited next door to congratulate the new mom and her puppies. Little blobs of silky smooth fur, the size of a computer mouse and with eyes still closed. Our neighbor Shane had recently had an accident and was having trouble getting around, making taking care of the new mom and pups difficult. This was the impetus for what became daily visits to make sure everyone in the canine maternity ward was taken care of.

 We hadn’t planned on getting more dogs. We still had Auckie, our spotted wonder dog, though he was getting older and set in his ways. After visiting the puppies daily for numerous weeks, we decided to see if the multiple dog generations could get along. To our relief, Auckie simply ignored the lab toddlers as they bounced around. We decided to adopt two of the four puppies from the litter (2 yellow and 2 chocolate labs). Sarah gravitated to the chocolate lab who was the runt of that quad litter.  He especially liked being petted and was as calm, as I’ve ever seen a dog. Alex was attracted to Maddie, the feisty yellow lab who wasn’t shy about pushing her siblings out of the way at feeding time (nickname foreshadowing).

We now had two new puppies, but what to name them? The summer before we had visited a couple majestic National Parks and I floated the idea of naming them Teton and Yellowstone. A location-based naming strategy that I had started with Auckie. The name Teton the Grand stuck, but Alex had other ideas so the nearly named Yellowstone moniker was replaced with Madeline Milkshake (aka Maddie). 

So began the adventures of Teton and Maddie, ‘The Puppies’ as they came to be known.  In one of their first acts, they managed to prune (eat to the ground) the rose bushes we had around the back patio.  I kid you not.  When not working on their diets, they excelled at making walks around the neighborhood seem more like water skiing on land. The trick was to hold on, lean back and try not to fall or else risk being dragged indefinitely.

One of nicer habits Maddie and her brother had was to dart out the front door to visit their mom next door.  They would race to the front door, if no one answered they would dart right back home.  This nieghborly dash caught visitors to our house off guard, as well as our nonchalant reaction to the labs taking off across the lawns.  One of their most profitable visits came when they ran out of our garage, into the open garage next door and through the open house door.  They emerged minutes later, each with a gigantic Milkbone treat jammed sideways in their mouths and their tails wagging furiously celebrating their snack victory.

For Maddie the other side of her behavior coin may best be summed up by her trip to the groomer.  It was an utter failure of anxiousness.  Maddie was ‘invited not to come back’ after pooping multiple times on the person who didn’t see the humor in it that I did.

As they collectively got older, the puppies settled into their patterns of eating promptly at 6am, begging to play catch with anyone who would wander onto the back patio and doing everything together, side by side. 

As the world shut down, they were the two happiest beings on the planet.  We were around all day, every day.  They would nap on either side of me during each workday, I would refer to them as ‘my office staff’.  An office staff that had to be let out to the back yard only during the conference calls I was hosting of course.

The challenges of old age catch up to everyone.  Her golden hair turned snow white on her face.  Further along the path to getting old Maddie lost her hearing.  This made me particularly sad because I never saw a dog who enjoyed getting her name called more than Maddie.  She loved attention, always!  Now she didn’t have that simple pleasure that brought her so much joy.  After Teton passed in August of 2022, one day we were coming back to the house after running an errand.  When we got out of the car, we could hear Maddie howling.  It occurred to us that this was the first time in her entire life she had been alone.  Completely alone.  Before she always had Teton to nap next to when we were out.  Her howling expression of loneliness occurred each time we were out.  We then made a concerted effort to minimize the time Maddie was left by herself.  Through our tag team family scheduling, great friends, and fantastic neighbors we found house sitters and babysitters all trying to give her company and comfort.

Madeline Milkshake, the yellow lab who always sought the center of attention because she simply wanted to please.  She will be missed; she will be terribly missed, even for the 3am restroom calls.

In lieu of flowers, please donate to your local SPCA or a rescue organization.