Obituary

Lionhill Azisa "Wilma" is not with us any more.

A brave heart's beating stopped. A close friendship came to a sad and untimely ending.

In 1999 Wilma came to us as a small puppy. Anne Mueller brought her along from South Africa, and she had picked the most dominant rascal of the litter for us.

And Wilma proved to be just that: never before and never since have I seen a puppy of such extraordinary dominance. As a small puppy she started to pee around the sleeping and feeding places of our full-grown dog Elsa to mark them as her own. With deafening, high-pitched barks she tried to get her way. Life with her was not easy. But our struggle for her respect, her faith, and her love was rewarded hundredfold by a dog that would have gone through hell for us.

I shall never forget when she stormed into an indoor riding hall as an adolescent and roughed up a whole bunch of full-grown Ridgebacks. I shall always remember her going through stinging-nettles and thornbushes while hunting with me, searching blood traces with eagerness and aptitude, swimming through lakes while looking for hidden ducks, or proudly running for kilometres with a hare in her mouth.

Her relationship to her big friend Elsa did not begin easily either. Elsa was not happy about her new rival, so she helped us in her own way to deal with the dominant little squaller. But out of rivalry and antipathy grew a strong friendship that became closer and closer over the years. They became inseparable, and we called them our "Siamese twins". After some years Wilma started to copy behaviour shown by Elsa - like shifting her weight from one leg to the other while waiting for her food, something we had known only from Elsa until then.

Wilma was a very caring and affectionate mother. Together with us (this was always very important to her!) she brought up three litters with a total of 23 puppies. She taught them everything she knew of importance, including barking and digging holes in the garden.

To Henry, whom she knew for the first 16 months of his life, she was a very special friend. Like our other dogs she adored him from the beginning, and she watched over him jealously and took care that we treated him well. She always responded to all noises he made with howling, thus getting on our nerves. And now we miss this howling, just as we shall be missing our big, strong, dominant, brave, faithful and always very present Wilma from now and for ever.

Five days before she died Wilma became a grandmother for the first time. Lionpath Bimbeau, one of her sons from her second litter, mated with Pakita, and she gave birth to eleven puppies on July 15th, 2008.

In the evening of July 21st, 2008 Wilma refused to eat. She wanted to go out into the garden, and, quite untypical for her, lay down on the floor. When I saw her lying on her side I knew that something was horribly wrong. Ela took her to the veterinary clinic at once, and there they diagnosed the rupture of a splenic tumour. Wilma seemed to know that her time to go was coming, and she took leave of Ela. Shortly after 11 p.m. the veterinarian helped her to fall asleep in Ela's arms.

One of her granddaughters, Lionpath Engelchen ('Small Angel'), died six hours later, early in the morning of July 22nd, 2008. I buried them together this late morning.

We who knew and loved you shall never forget you, Wilma. We miss you, and the anguish caused by our loss is unbearable. Your sudden and early death left a gaping wound that will never be healed. I take comfort in the thought that you did not have to suffer for a long time, and that you will live on in your children and grandchildren, and even more than that in our memory.

Thank you for nine wonderful years.

one day before she died...

Wilma at an age of 8 weeks
Wilma at an age of 10 weeks		here Ela, Elsa 15 months old, Wilma about 12 weeks
		here at an age of 12 months
a few weeks after her first mating		a few weeks before the first mating in 2003	with her first litter
	with Pakita 2004	2004
2003 a really hot summer	2005 typical for her. A real couch potatoe:)	2004, November	2004 shows her real dominance
on a trip to Sweden
she plays always the clown, if she is boared...	here in the middle, left: Elsa, right Pakita
Wilma after her walk in the kitchen	one day before she died	after putting her down. She had a splenic tumor which ruptured