So Long to My Happy Halipuppy

My sweet old dog died a couple of days ago, and I’m finding it more or less impossible to think about anything else, so this week we are going to talk dogs.

Let me tell you a bit about mine: Her name was Emma, and she was a 14-year-old yellow Labrador Retriever. She liked cheese, squeaky toys, and licking out the almost-empty peanut butter jar.

We’d had her since she was only eight weeks old. She was a very friendly dog, in the way that Labs are. She never heard a child’s voice without an eager “whap” of her tail. She never met a person or a food group that she didn’t like (although, like most of us, she could take or leave salespeople and brussels sprouts).

She spent her entire life in Halifax, except for those first 8 weeks down in Nictaux Falls, and I’m glad she was able to live her life in such a dog-friendly city.

Halifax, when you think about it, is a pretty great place to raise a dog. I look at cities like New York and Toronto, where green spaces and rugged wooded areas are really hard to find, and I compare them to Halifax, where there are just so many beautiful places for a dog and her people to go and get their ya-ya’s out.

What would dog owners do, for example, without Point Pleasant Park? Emma and I must have covered every inch of that park, hundreds of times over. Having the freedom to let Emma run around off-leash was both a blessing and a curse (especially during her disobedient puppy years), but it was really one of the keys to her long and happy life.

Long Lake was another favourite place for us. I loved the scenic wooded trails and the sense of quiet remoteness, and she – without question – loved the lake. She was a swimmer, and a retriever, and in her prime she would obsessively chase sticks, balls, Frisbees, or anything floatable that was thrown out into the water for her.

We also explored the wooded off-leash trails in Shubie Park and Hemlock Ravine on occasion. And when she was younger, before she tore a ligament in her knee, Emma was Queen of the Graceful and Athletic Frisbee catchers on Conrose Field, off Jubilee Road.

But this isn’t even scratching the surface of Halifax’s dog-friendly spaces. There are so many other beautiful parks and trails. If you’re new to town and aren’t quite sure where to take your pooch, there’s a full list of off-leash parks and sports fields available on the HRM website at
http://www.halifax.ca/realpropertyplanning/OLPS/olps_maps.html

You can also find information about the numerous walking trails around HRM here: http://www.halifax.ca/rec/TrailsHrm.html

Pet owners in Halifax have got it pretty good. Being responsible enough to pick up a bit of poop is a small price to pay for living in a city where you can easily raise a happy, healthy companion to a ripe old age.

We already miss Emma terribly, but she certainly lived the good life here with us. Happy trails to my gorgeous old girl.