In a mountain meadow somewhere in North Carolina: Glynn Wilson

By Glynn Wilson –

CONECUH NATIONAL FOREST – It is with a heavy heart that I must report this morning the death of my loyal companion Jefferson, the most beautiful Springer Spaniel I have ever seen and the smartest and best dog ever. He was 13, or 91 in human years.

I watched him take his final few breaths last night, Christmas 2019, after we returned from a day at Pensacola Dog Beach. I sang him our song one last time, a version I developed to sing him to sleep at night of “My Buddy I’ll Be Missing You.” It was his last road trip and our final adventure together. He will be greatly missed.

Long-time readers may recall that my mother and I adopted Jefferson from the national English Springer Spaniel Rescue Network back in early 2012. I thought it would be good for my mom to have a dog friend around, and I thought it would be good for me to have something to take care of and care about besides myself and my mother.

We held out for the right dog, and one day Jefferson came to us from a family in St. Clair County who could no longer keep up with his care. His original name was Bama Bear, and while he looked like a little bear and I sometimes called him Boo Boo after the cartoon bear, I thought he looked like a founding father in the face so I renamed him Jefferson.

The inspiration for getting a Springer Spaniel came from a great dog I knew in Knoxville, Tennessee named Johnson. He was not afraid of noise so he would sit right in front of the bass drum when I set up the drum set on the big porch there when we would play blues and rock and roll on football Saturdays. He liked to chase firecrackers too, but he rarely barked and was friendly to everybody. I thought he was the coolest dog ever until we found Jefferson.

The day he was brought over to the house in Birmingham, he was not feeling so well, since he was on medication after being neutered by the adoption agency vet. I was worried he wouldn’t work out since he took his first poop on the living room carpet and peed on the garbage can in the kitchen.

But I didn’t punish him. I just picked up the poop on a piece of cardboard, took it out back and showed him a patch of leaves by the backyard fence and told him where to go. The next morning, he went right out back to that same spot and did his business there every day until we moved mom out in 2014 before selling the house.

I knew he was a smart dog that day. He could open doors for himself as well. So I asked permission to take him on a camping trip to North Carolina to see how he would be on the road in a camper van with a canoe on top.

Slide Show Video: Wild South Mountain Excursion 2012

He did great, and even got to ride in the canoe with me.

So when we got back, we signed the adoption papers. I assured him that I would take care of him and told him we would have many fun and exciting adventures together, and boy did we ever.

He was rarely not by my side after that, insisting on going everywhere with me. Anytime I had to go away and work or take care of some business, he would howl and complain. I came to love his funny little howl, although I couldn’t get him to do it recently when the coyotes were howling away in the forest near here. He had lost most of his eyesight in recent months due to cataracts, and he couldn’t hear so well or play frisbee and ball like he used to.

After we moved out of the house in Birmingham and went back to Washington, D.C. in the camper van just in time for the opening of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian Nation-to-Nation exhibit, in which we had a photograph picked up for one of the videos, we began our long-term camping adventure together.

Jefferson had his picture taken by the Jefferson Memorial in Washington that fall, and in one of our favorite venues, at Thomas Jefferson’s home in Charlottesville, Virginia, Monticello.

Later on a 6,000 mile, 28-day trip out west in the centennial year of the National Park Service in 2016, we got to visit the Gateway to the West Arch by the Jefferson Expansion Memorial in St. Louis, Missouri. We camped at Standing Rock, in Yellowstone National Park and the Grand Canyon, as well as other places along the way.

It is fitting that his final resting place will be on the edge of a national forest, since we camped in so many over the past seven years. I had already picked out a spot and dug a grave before our Christmas Day trip, and buried him there right after writing this story and picking the photographs to use. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in my life.

Jefferson was preceded in death this year by his other adoption sponsor, my dear mother Margaret Wilson, and his good friend and mine David Underhill, who spent many hours tossing the ball for the relentless retriever who would never fail to bring the ball back.

He was such an athlete that even after he hurt his leg in that backyard in Mobile, he would still bring the ball back. He developed a bit of a limp after that, then arthritis seemed to set in.

No need to send flowers, although condolences in the comments or on Facebook are welcome. But I’m sure he would appreciate it if more people would financially support the travel and journalistic endeavors of the New American Journal.

It seems like 2019 has been the year of the obituary. I just hope we don’t have to write the obituary for American democracy next year or the obituary on the human species’ chances of survival on planet Earth. Jefferson the dog, like his name sake, would want us to keep trying to save them both.

More Photos

By the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C.: Glynn Wilson

On the bed in the camper van: Glynn Wilson

A new pup with a new haircut: Glynn Wilson

Playing in the snow in Hungry Mother State Park, Virginia: Glynn Wilson

Swimming in the Shenandoah River, Virginia: Glynn Wilson

On our last adventure together, at Pensacola Dog Beach: Glynn Wilson