08/19/2025
This beautiful tribute by my friend Barbara to her precious collie Linde brought tears to my eyes, and I wanted to share it with you.
Holmhaven Lady at the Gate (Linde)
Celebrating a Beautiful and Joyful Life
3/14/2011-7/24/2025
My collie Linde was a shining light. Her name means “singer” and was inspired by a song I have loved for years by Judy Collins. If I say she was my dog, she might correct me for Albert Payson Terhune, the famous teller of the tales of Lad and his other collies, always said, “A dog is a dog, but a collie is a collie.” Having two collies has taught me that this is true. They are extraordinary. I know from Dr. Cindy, our remarkable veterinary practitioner, that the Chinese describe both people and animals with allusions to the elements: fire, air, earth, water, metal. Linde’s element was fire. She blazed through her life with joy and energy in everything she did and felt: hot natured, determined, passionate in loving *and* in flashes of temperament, talkative, engaging, curious, spectacularly friendly, unqualified in her honesty. You always knew where you stood with her every minute. She was fearless. The only thing in the world that scared her was not being in control. I tried the Caesar Milan thing with her….once….. the terror in the eyes of my then puppy was a knife in my heart, and I never did it again. Some dogs will do anything to please their owners. Not Linde. I had to first convince her that what I wanted her to do was *really* what she should be doing. I respected that and loved it, actually. Collies, as a herding breed, were bred to make their own decisions out in the field with the flock, and that breeding came through strongly in her.
She was quietly protective regardless of what I thought of it. When Linde was about 5 months old, we went to visit the only other collies in town. I hoped for a collie play date. However, a neighbor’s loose dog had attacked my friend’s female through the fence a couple of weeks before, so the male decided when we got out of the car that we were a threat and started barking ferociously at us. All I could think of was protecting my adolescent collie from an experience with an adult male that might mar her personality for life, but she, of course, knew better. She would not let me get between him and her. She did not make a sound, but every time I tried, she would step around me and press against my legs. I did not realize what she was doing until Wanda observed, “She is protecting you.” Linde knew it was her job to stand between me and what she decided was danger. I think the only time I ever heard her growl was one night when we woke to hear rhythmic tapping on my west window after Miso, one of our k9 deputies then, had cornered a fugitive hiding outside under it. There was not an aggressive bone in her body, but I knew that she would protect me if I ever needed it. I felt safe with her.
Linde was smart, an obedience competitor. That is how we got the ribbons. She qualified and placed in all her competitions, and in one she was awarded “high score in trial” which is the equivalent in performance competitions to Best in Show in the conformation shows you see on tv. I was SO proud of her! She had letters after her name identifying her titles. What was better, she loved the trials. She could be the center of attention, and there were lots of people to charm and talk to, her favorite thing. Obedience is the most disciplined of all the performance competitions, and I was always jittery that she would start greeting the people who stood along the fence to watch and get us DQed. But she never did.
When Linde was about 10 weeks old, a couple of weeks after I brought her home, I asked our then pastor at First Church Bob Laidlaw if he would dedicate her as a therapy dog which was what I wanted her to be. So Bob and Traci joined my mom, Linde, and me in the back yard for a beautiful, sweet ceremony that Bob prepared. She was prayed over and blessed and commissioned to do God’s will and work. We did a few visitations, but it did not work out the way I hoped it would. Therapy dogs tend to be unimposing and calm, but that was not her. I always had to explain to people when she greeted them so vocally that she was NOT barking at them but trying to talk to them. It could be intimidating, though, and I understood that. After a while, therefore, I began to realize that she was really meant to be MY therapy dog. She was by my side for the loss of my mama who was “my person,” through two bouts of chemo, one of them really terrible, four surgeries and some additional hospital stays, the loss of several of my other “kids,” betrayals by people I had trusted. When I got Raphael (Holmhaven Divine Design), my boy collie and her biological nephew, she became his mama, teaching him the rules of how to be a good collie. She slept at the foot of my bed every night and watched over me during the day. She could not bear it when I cried. Even if it was just a movie boohoo, she would come and jump her front half into my lap so I could put my arms around her and snap out of it to keep from upsetting her.
She was never Raphael’s “mama” in *her* heart. She was his big sister, and like big sisters sometimes do, she took advantage of his innocence occasionally. In summer, the floor register behind my chair from whence issues our AC is the prime sleeping spot for collie residents. Once when Raphael had claimed it for long enough I guess she thought, Linde, who knew that he would follow her anywhere, got up and went to the door. Sure enough, he popped up and abandoned the spot to follow her out. The register is near that door, and she detoured right to it and lay down. Mission accomplished! Poor Raphael just looked confused and disappointed, and it was all I could do not to laugh out loud. NEVER laugh AT a collie. Laugh WITH them. Collies have an inner core of dignity, and laughing at them hurts their feelings. But Linde let him raid her food bowl until he reached the age of accountability, and that ended abruptly with an adult collie snap. They never miss unless they mean to. She missed, but he never tried it again.
In December, 2022, when i was home in Missouri, Linde’s acupuncturist there found a mass on her leg just below her shoulder joint that turned out to be a terrifying grade 3 soft tissue sarcoma. She was already having mild mobility problems, so the usual treatment, amputation, had to be rejected for her quality of life. Her doctor up there removed the mass, unable to get margins because of the location. The pathology report was terrible, not a single hopeful thing in it. I took her to KSU vet hospital where she was assigned 19 radiation treatments, five days a week with weekends off, anesthesia every day. She was almost 12, so i worried. Her wonderful radiologist Dr. Azuma called me herself every day when she woke up and ate. Because of the extraordinary kindness of my friend Melissa who worked for the foundation, Linde spent weeknights with her family there and came home on the weekends. When I took her to the hospital to drop her off for week 2, we were greeted by a cry of delight from the receptionist as soon as we walked in, “It’s LINDE!” I laughed because I had a hunch why she was so joyfully recognized. They had been getting her up and taking her around to say hello to *everyone* every day. I confirmed that with the receptionist and told her, “And I am, like the mother of every other celebrity, just ‘Linde’s mom.’” A week later when I dropped her off again and she turned over for a belly rub from the tech who came for her, i also discovered they had been been filling her full of chicken treats to which she was mildly allergic at the time because her tummy was all red. By the time I dropped her off the last week, she was finally tired of the whole thing though. When I gave Dr. Azuma her leash, Linde would not get up. Dr. Azuma looked at me quizzically and said, “i don’t understand. She was up and walking around not ten minutes ago!” I chuckled and answered, “She is fine. She just doesn’t want to leave me.” I told Linde a couple of times that it was okay to go with doctor, but no luck until I got up and pretended to follow along until she and Doctor were down the hall on the way to the treatment area. (I felt like a traitor!) I didn’t want to leave her either, but between Dr. Azuma and Dr. Cindy—and Linde herself— that cancer *never* came back even though Linde did not do the recommended chemo and was completely off her cancer meds for the last year of her life. And there are hundreds of other stories—- like when she was voted the cutest baby by the NFC Art Club and had her portrait done by one of the very talented members. I could tell them by the hour! I had to write this to be read to be sure that I didn’t.
There are many I have to thank for her: her breeders, especially my late beloved friend Leila who was so attached to her as a puppy that she almost kept her. I thanked her 10,000 times for letting her go to me, God bless her. My dear friend Lil whom i still have and who has taught me and supported me so much in my journey as a collie owner. Dr. Azuma and the amazing Dr. Cindy and all the kind people at the KSU hospital. Her compassionate, irreplaceable, primary care vet John Lewis(the man, the myth, the legend) who knew and cared for her all her life, and everyone who helped her or helped me take care of her.
But most of all I thank God.
I loved Linde more than anything and love her still. Miss Congeniality, Miss Scarlett (after Scarlett O’hara because she swung her hips when she walked and found it so easy to charm everyone into giving her anything she wanted), pretty brown eyes, silly puppy, my Lassie whom I had longed for as a child, she was all. Writing this has brought into focus how blessed beyond luck I was to have her share her life with me. I did everything in the world I could for her, but I did not deserve her. I took her for granted. I scolded her for things unjustly and ignorantly. And she forgave me and loved me still and never abandoned me and loved me and trusted me even as I held her in my arms when she went to sleep for the last time in this life.
I think God gives us individuals like my precious, beautiful, brilliant, shining fiery light Linde to teach us how it feels to be loved without reservation or condition before we die to know his love. How could she NOT be waiting for me there, playing with my angels until I get home? She was my light and my heart and a light, I think, to anyone who knew her. I love you forever, Linde. You wait, honey, and I’ll be back. I promise.
