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he’s the black streak racing around Oriental in the doggie wheelchair. The one chasing the squirrel, bounding after the flying disc and slaloming among the picnic tables – all with the funny looking cart behind her.

But only recently Allie was reduced to dragging herself around with her front legs and her owner John Delamar feared she might be paralyzed forever. For showing us humans how to adapt and get back to rolling, careening, and power sliding through life, we name Allie Miss November.

Allie in full flight retrieving her toy in Lou Mac Park. .

Allie, Sarah Rilinger and John Delamar at Lou Mac park.

A few years ago, John Delamar’s friends found a puppy on Highway 55. They took it in, but after a few months, decided it needed a new home. So it wound up with John. Referred to at the time as the “Black Ness Monster”, in reference to the lake creature, the dog was of indeterminate breeding – possibly a lab/beagle cross. One thing was clear, though. The dog possessed boundless amounts of energy.

“I came home from work one day” says John, “and heard her making sounds from under the house. I crawled under and couldn’t believe my eyes.” The dog had crawled under the lattice work and, standing on its hind legs, attacked the underside of the structure. It ripped extensive amounts of insulation and duct work free, scattering the debris around the yard and creating “an unbelievable amount of damage”.

John says he was “very upset” with the dog and, “had to set some ground rules.”

Then there was the matter of finding her a suitable name. Black Ness Monster seemed, well, a tad dark.

On Thanksgiving day, John and the dog were riding in his pick up truck. Woody Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant” came on the radio. “Alice. I just thought that would be a nice name.” he says. The name stuck and has since been shortened to Allie. That was 6 years ago and John says, “it’s hard to believe I’ve had anything that long.” As to the duct work incident, John says, “that’s the only thing that she’s done that was horrendous.” – a one time incident never to be repeated.

Allie’s first 5 years with John passed in a flurry of hiking and sailing.

John, a fan of long hikes, would take her for extensive walks along Highway 55 and Kershaw Road. Other times, off road rambles were in order. Then there were the Oriental outings. He says, “she was so strong, she would pull me on my skateboard.”

Joining them on their outings was John’s friend Sarah Rilinger.

One summer, Sarah worked as a sailing instructor at the Bow to Stern Sailing School. She says Allie, “would swim around the Optimist dinghies, right there on the race course. The kids used to throw tennis balls at her while she was in the water.” The paddling dog was used to reinforce the “tiller toward trouble” lesson. On a tiller steered craft, pointing the helm toward a navigational danger steered the craft in the opposite direction. That, says Sarah, taught sailors, “to steer away from danger.”

Allie and Sarah a few summers ago enjoying a paddle at the mouth of Camp Creek. Sarah says it’s one of Allie’s favorite swimming holes. (Carol Silinger photo)

While most dogs wear mass produced dog tags, not so Allie. She sports one of rainbow webbing. Into it, Sarah stitched Alice’s name and John’s phone number.

All this activity led to a slew of nicknames. Regarding her energy, there was “Black Dynamite” and “Black a Saurus Rex”. Also, “Hypotamus”, “Moosestafafleas”, and “Moosealini”. There was even, in a nod to her love of water, “Dogopotamus” and “Hydro Dog”.

There were quieter times too, like visits to Libby Delamar, John’s grandmother. Sarah says she couldn’t see and enjoyed petting Allie. “Because Libby was blind, when she would pet Allie, it was sometimes backwards or made Allie uncomfortable.” But Allie, “was so sweet that she would just lay there and let Libby love on her however she wanted to.”

Then Allie went lame.

One day in March 2011 John and Sarah noticed Allie’s hindquarters weakening. Her condition worsened but vet Dorothy Dimond couldn’t pinpoint the trouble. It was thought maybe she’d hurt herself on one of her running jags. Allie, after all, was known for blind pursuit of game. Once, hot on the heels of a squirrel, she chased the creature up the trunk of a low-branched oak. She didn’t stop running until she’d scrambled into the tree’s lower branches. There, from her perch a few feet in the air, Sarah says Allie looked down at her as though thinking, “how did I get up here?”

Perhaps, it was thought, she’d just injured herself.

But her condition worsened. She went from unsteady on her hind legs to dragging them on the ground. Additional trips to the vet revealed nothing definitive. The condition appeared incurable. In the end, it was determined Allie was affected by a degenerative spinal disorder.

The only good news was that Allie wasn’t suffering. Sarah says, “she still wanted to run and wasn’t in pain.”

“I grieved,” says Sarah. “She was an incredible athlete and to see her deteriorate was like losing the dog we once had.” The pet John and Sarah teasingly called the “Dogopotamus”, the one who loved dragging skateboards and swimming around sailboats, seemed finished. She’d reached the point where many dog owners would be excused for making a final trip to the vet.

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