To those of us fortunate enough to spend our lives among dogs, we know that although we love them all dearly, perhaps once in a lifetime, twice if we are especially blessed, we will have a “heart dog”; a dog who seemingly can read our mind, knows our every move and who worships us as their deity and, with whom we feel we can communicate with on a special wave length. Anice Terhune was a fortunate woman, many would say blessed, in many aspects of her life. Having had two heart dogs in her lifetime, yes, she was blessed.
From the moment Anice gazed at the fat, fluffy ball of puppyhood that was Gray Dawn, colored gray, silver, snow white and “ashes of gold” like the dawning day, she was smitten. This pup, while not replacing the gallant Lad, would be held close in her heart and arms, almost as one’s own child might. The Master may rant and rave about Dawn’s puppy clumsiness and bull in a china shop ways, but the Mistress knew he was special. The Mistress always knew. Dawn would join the pantheon of the noble hero dogs of Sunnybank as the last of the great Sunnybank collies.
While Bert may write about Gray Dawn “Consciously he was in eternal mischief; unconsciously he was in everlasting trouble!” , Anice knew he wasn’t all clown. She said “I never saw a steadier, stauncher look in any dog’s eye except Laddie’s”. Dawn was her second heart dog.
Dawn and Anice developed a special bond and were devoted to each other. All it took was a few words of praise from the Mistress when Dawn carried the newspapers down the driveway and dropped them at her feet, for him to start stealing newspapers from the entire neighborhood each morning to bring to his deity.
Bert Terhune had described Anice as having had an elfin charm and I believe she recognized a kindred spirit in the form of Gray Dawn. They both looked at the world through a lens of lightheartedness and humor first, a twinkle ever present in their eyes; and with solemnness or anger only when truly warranted.
So besotted with Dawn was Anice that she wrote several stories in serial form for the Argosy magazine in the early 1920’s. In all the stories, Gray Dawn is the hero and his owner, Betty Ellison is a thinly veiled version of Anice. One description of Dawn captures his personality perfectly. “Gray Dawn..was in dire disgrace. He was rather apt to be more or less in disgrace, for he was young, and gay and bumptious. He had a tremendous capacity for innocent mischief, such, for example, as worrying the irreproachable Panama hat of Betty’s newest admirer, then romping off with it under cover of tea and conversation, to toss is gaily at last into the pigsty at the farthermost corner of the Place, behind the cow barn.” Somehow I get the feeling this actually must have happened in some form!
Another funny incident which showcases Dawn’s humor and Anice’s tolerance for it is described by Anice as follows “Another of Dawn’s tricks when Betty had guests was to rush upstairs in a gust of hospitality to search for some fitting gift for the visitor. Dawn always invaded Betty’s own room at such time and seized upon some item of her wearing apparel, a bedside slipper, a ribbon belt, a pink satin camisole; the first thing his bright brown eyes happened to light on. …he had a fatal habit of bringing the very thing of all the others that he should NOT have brought and generously dropping it in front of the guest; his white teeth showing in a happy grin, his plumy tail waving cordially, his graceful body bending as close to approaching a courtly bow as he could manage.”
The only time Dawn willingly left her side was when the Master suffered injuries from being hit by a car on the high road in 1928. Then, Dawn, showing the steadfast devotion of the best of collies, stayed by his bedside, leaving unwillingly only for a gulp of food or water and, if being locked outside, was not above crashing through a basement window to take up his vigil at the Master’s side once again. After the Master’s illness, some of Dawn’s elfish sense of humor seemed to have left him and he became much more steady and serious. As he aged, Dawn spent all his spare time close to the Mistress and Master. As Bert stated in The Passing of Gray Dawn “He would lie and look at us as if he were trying to fix our faces indelibly in his memory.” When Dawn passed away on Memorial Day 1929 he went in his sleep with no pain or fear. The Terhunes did not announce his passing to the general public despite the great interest in Dawn from around the world. I believe this was because their grief was too raw; they needed time to begin to heal before letting the world outside the Place know of their great loss.
As you walk over the grounds of Sunnybank this weekend, imaging the Garden from Everywhere, the wisteria covered house and the Rose Walk; imagine too the petite mistress, Anice Terhune, clothed in a diaphanous dress, strolling through the same grounds with Gray Dawn, her large majestic merle at her side. Their mutual devotion is plain to see. I can see them clearly; can’t you?
In honor of Gray Dawn and Anice’s relationship and for all of us who have loved and lost a heart dog, I’ll be reading a poem of Rudyard Kipling, a contemporary of the Terhunes, The Power of the Dog.
Noralee Smiley
August 18, 2018
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