I found Maggie dead on June 19. Under a tree. Cause of death unknown. She was only eight and a half years old. I only had her for fifteen months. I got her shortly after Boone died unexpectedly in March 2020. A friend gave her to me. She was an extra on their farm.
Maggie was a sweet girl. I will miss her. Her box of ashes joins the boxes containing ashes of Boone and McComb before her. She may have been a livestock guardian dog, but I still loved her like a pet.
Recently, I had been treating one of her toe pads. It had a hole in it. I found maggots. After treating it, I would wrap her paw in vet wrap. I kept her in the garage and fenced backyard for about 10 days to try to keep her paw clean. She liked to burrow. I had only recently put her back in with the sheep when she died. A few days before she died, I tried to give her her first bath. She would have not part of it. I gave up.
She was the only dog I ever had that wouldn't regularly eat her dog food. I had to add something to it. Most of the time, I added some soft (can) food to her food. Sometimes, I added cheese, milk, or eggs, but she didn't seem to like that too much. Other times, I saved meat or other table scraps. This is what she preferred. I had to be careful not to feed her where there was shavings or sawdust. She would turn her nose into a shovel and scoop the shavings into her food dish. I bought her an elevated dish, but she'd still manage to get sawdust into her food. I needed to feed her outside where there was nothing to scoop.
This is the last picture I took of Maggie, about a week before she died.
This is my favorite picture of her with sheep. I might enter it in a contest.
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