The end of June 2014 we had to have our 8 year old Black Lab Loki put to sleep. He had developed Leukemia and it took his life. About 3 weeks later our Jack Russell Terrier Abby was still so distraught, she was only eating once a day and drinking half of her usual amount, that my wife Christina and I decided that we needed to do something to get her out of her funk. So, we went to the Somerset County Pa Humane Society website and picked 3 dogs out that we thought she would like and seemed like they may be a good fit with us. Our landlord at the time volunteered at the Humane Society going to walk the dogs and give them some exercise so he knew the dogs and was enthusiastic with whichever one of the three we choose. We arranged a meeting with the dogs and Abby and went down. The first two seemed ambivalent to her and she to them. But then they brought out Jack, he was adorable with one ear flopped over onto his head and the other one flopped down alongside his head. It was clear to me that he was a young dog but they said that he was 7 years old. He saw Abby and immediately did the front legs down butt up in the air tail wag that dogs do when they want to play. She perked up a bit but that was about it. He then came over to me and leaned against my leg for some rib rubs and pats, then did the same to Christina. We decided that we would foster him for a few days to see how Abby did with him at home. So, we filled out the paperwork and took Abby home, a few days later we got the phone call that we were acceptable to foster and possibly adopt if it worked out. The first night he was home was an adventure to say the least. He slipped away when he was being put out to potty and that was when we learned that his favorite game to play was chase me. Spent the next 45 min trying to catch him running through people’s back yards hoping that none of them would come out and shoot me. A few days later we had made the decision that while Abby still wasn’t back to her usual self, she had accepted him at least so he was now a member of our family. With that since he didn’t seem to respond to Jack, we decided that a name change was in order. So, we began throwing out names seeing what we liked and what he would respond to. After about 50 names from each of us and not a single movement from the dog, Christina looked at me and asked if I had any Guinness in the refrigerator because he was making her want to drink. He immediately picked up his head and looked at her, I asked if he was a Guinness and he jumped up and did the butt down spin in a circle thing that all dogs seem to love to do. I got a t-shirt out that had a Guinness logo and said Guinness on it and laid it on the bed, he jumped up laid down and put his head right on the harp and Guinness. I said Ok that is now your name, you are Guinness.
Christina was working at Walmart (part time) and the Somerset Daily American (also part time) at the time. One of the guys who had been a seasonal employee at Walmart the year before saw her post on Facebook about Guinness being the new member of the family. He sent her a message and asked if we had gotten him from the Humane Society. When she told him yes, he said OK I am 99% sure that he is the dog that I just recently took in. And told her the story behind him taking the dog to the Humane Society, apparently a friend of his who was a woman that was divorced recently and gotten the dog was bouncing from man to man and not taking care of the dog. He had taken the dog in and his German Shepherd did not like him in his house, so the dog was staying in his garage. After two weeks he told her that if she didn’t find a permanent place to keep him and start taking care of him, he was going to take the dog to the Humane Society.
Now when we got him, he was a full dog, so the first thing we did was make an appt. to get him neutered. Unfortunately, that did not stop him from trying to get away and play chase me. He was a master at getting loose. He was so good at it, sometimes slipping his collar and sometimes just twisting away at the last second before being hooked to his tie out. So, I decided to show him that I was smarter than he is, I got a harness for him and added a length of chain to his tie out. He could slip his collar and he was still attached to the tie out via his harness. Of course, the dog was so damn good at getting loose he still managed to get away from time to time. But nowhere near as much as he used to. By now Abby was back to her normal self and beating the hell out of him on a daily basis, and he was loving every second of it. They had become a bonded pair.
Come January 2015 I had come to my wits end with him trying to get loose and run all the time so I decided that I was going to take him for a hike to see if that would burn off some energy. He was going for daily walks but that just wasn’t enough for him. The first time I took him out we went about 5-7 miles or so. He loved it, and even better he didn’t try to get away in the next few days following the hike. I knew I had found what he needed. So, a weekly hike it became, there were a few times in those first few hikes that he managed to get loose and play chase me on the trail. Until I threatened to just leave him and go home, then he would come over to me and let me hook him back up and we would go like nothing had ever happened. After about a year of this and finding out that he did best when we went a minimum of a mile and a half, he calmed down some and quit trying to get loose at least out on hikes, any other time was still fair game. Of course, he was also about 3 years old by that time too, so that may have helped things a bit. Come July of 2015 we had bought our house which had a fenced in yard, that unfortunately had a spot that he could get out easily right by our shed. He managed to get away from Christina the first time we slept at the house in the morning. I was just trying to keep him from going down by the front of the house and the shed so that he wouldn’t get out and need another 45 minutes of him playing chase me. As I was running along the side of the house my foot slipped in the dew covered grass and down I went sliding down the hill into the fence. He came running down next to me and when he saw me get up, he ran by and to the gap in the fence. And of course, it was 45 minutes before we caught up with him, thanks to Abby I was able to get him into the truck and back to the house. About a month later we had the fence completed and there was no longer any way for him to get out unless the gate(s) weren’t latched. From that day forward he was happy as happy could be, he would just go out and patrol the yard or sit on the hill side and watch the yard and surroundings.
Starting in November of 2015 Guinness went with me up to New York for hunting season. He would hang out in the cabin in front of the fire burning in the fireplace was a favorite spot. Even better was on the couch in front of the fireplace right by the window so he could watch outside and soak up the heat. Of course, there was also the cuddles from “his kids” and especially Joe when he came down to camp. He didn’t care if Joe was there when I went out because he knew he had Joe to cuddle with and that I would be back soon enough. He absolutely loved being at the cabin/cottage/camp. It didn’t matter to him what time of year it was, of course he didn’t like having to be chained up when he went outside when he was there.
In February of 2016 Cerberus came home, he was an eight week old pup at the time. Guinness immediately loved him. They would run around and play together outside and inside. It was amazing to see how gentle he was with his new little brother. As far as Guinness was concerned life was perfect. He would go for a hike every week, he had a big little sister and a little brother to play with, got food twice a day and was able to get cuddles at least once a day every day.
In May 2017 Guinness and I went on an overnight hike on the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail. We started at the Rte. 31 Trailhead and went to the Turnpike Shelters. Then the next morning we went to the Truck at the Rte. 30 Trailhead. The only thing that he didn’t seem really fond of was the fact that there were animals walking around in the dark that he couldn’t get at to protect Dad. He loved the fact that as far as he was concerned it was two days in a row of hiking. I meant to get him out on more of those it just never seemed to happen.
In March of 2019 Guinness’ heart was broken, Abby died from some form of cancer. He wasn’t really interested in going for hikes for the next few weeks. He started licking his front paws a lot, which was something that Abby had done all the time throughout her life. When asked the Vet said that sometimes when dogs become a bonded pair like they were and one of them dies the other one will start to do something the other one had done. She thought that it was as a way for the remaining dog to remember his/her packmate that they loved so dearly.
Once he was done grieving, he started to want to go for hikes again. His favorite distance at this time turned out to be about 10 miles. With a few hikes being 12 miles or slightly more in length. The average though being between 5 and 10 miles. There were times that the hikes would be short quick ones and others where they were longer. In October 2021 Delta joined the family, she is an Australian Shepherd. He was quite excited when she first came home but after a bit was just like whatever. The two of them if it was just them when they were outside would sit either on both sides of the house to watch or close together each watching a different direction. In November of 2023 he somehow broke his right rear paw in two places. That took a lot out of him. Of course, he was eleven years old at this point in his life. Then in March he didn’t want to go for a hike one day, we figured that it was just the weather and his age. A few days later he was back to his normal self. Then in April he started to get bloated and was acting like he had a brain fog and didn’t want to eat. I called the vet and made an appointment. When we went in the Vet took one look at him and said he is anemic, told the vet tech to get the ultrasound machine. Then after a few seconds she told me what I was fearing. That he had a tumor on either his liver or his spleen. Then added something I didn’t like; the tumor was bleeding. If the bleeding stopped an exploratory surgery could be done to see where the tumor was and possibly remove it. But with the bleeding that was impossible the surgery would definitely kill him. We went home, and he laid down on his bed and didn’t try to move. I stayed with him the entire weekend. On Monday morning when I got up, he was obviously in pain and not getting any better. At that time, I made the difficult decision to have him put to sleep. I promised him that I wouldn’t leave him until the very end, and I didn’t. I took him outside for a little while and laid him in his yard in his favorite spot and just sat there with him. Both Cerberus and Delta laid there with us too. In the truck on the way down to the vet’s office he laid in his spot in the back seat on the floor and moved enough so that I could reach back and rest my hand on his head. When we got off of 219, he moved himself back to the door. At a little after 5 pm he took his last breath and was gone. He rejoined Abby and is waiting for me know I know it.
Traildog Adventures 