My Beastie Bestie – Laura Vosika and Liadan the Wolfhound

Please welcome US author Laura onto the blog, with her Beastie Bestie Liadan. I read this through tears and I’m sure it will have you reaching for the tissues too. There can be no doubting the powerful bond we have with our dogs and the impact of their loss. Over to you, Laura …

Liadan—a dog like no other. As I wrote The Blue Bells Chronicles, a time travel/historical adventure featuring a modern orchestral trombonist caught in medieval Scotland, I often saw ‘the Laird’s great hunting hounds’ in the castle. These were the ancestors of today’s Irish Wolfhound—the tallest dog.

While writing, I immersed myself in medieval experiences, to better write that world. I hiked Scotland’s hills in medieval boots and visited castles. Chris and I owned medieval weapons, musical instruments, and tapestries. We tasted medieval recipes. Chris bought a sackbut—a medieval trombone. I studied Scots Gaelic.

We were missing a few authentic experiences—riding a horse over caltropes, attack by trebuchets, and the laird’s great hunting hounds. We were willing to forgo the first two. But I set my heart on an Wolfhound.

I found her in Cincinnati—a gangly, 87-pound purebred Wolfhound puppy: Liadan. Grey Lady in Scots Gaelic. We drove through the night. I was told Liadan didn’t like cars. But she jumped straight into ours! I was in love!

We reached home at two am Thanksgiving morning. The kids were crazy about her. She loved them immediately. Our first lesson in how big these dogs are was when Liadan casually stepped over the back of the couch. Later, as I sat on a tall chair at my kitchen counter, her nose poked my shoulder. When she stood on her hind legs, paws on my shoulders, she looked down on me.

Irish Wolfhounds ‘dock,’ where they bow their heads against your leg. They also leeaaan! When we took Liadan to meet three other Wolfhounds, Chris had two Wolfhounds leaning on each side—550 pounds of dog!

Irish Wolfhounds will take an arm between their jaws and gently shake—no pressure. Liadan took my kids’ entire heads between her jaws! She loved to lay across my kids’ laps. She was a lapdog—even if it took four laps!

Her outstanding traits were affection, love, gentleness, and…humanity. There was something in her eyes, her behavior, her love that made me feel she was more human than dog.

She became legend in our suburb. Kids at the park flocked around her. Parents took pictures. One woman feared Liadan but snapped pictures of her child beside a dog that, even seated, towered above him. My son one day heard a wrestling teammate talking about ‘that lady with that huge dog.’ He got a kick out of saying, “That’s my mom!”

Until 2020, I gave talks on medieval history. We brought weapons, musical instruments, and a slide show. We brought Liadan, a living example of a distant time. People loved her and with her soulful eyes she seemed to understand she gave them joy and was so gentle with them.

She joined us for our podcast Wordsmiths and a Wolfhound and for Reading with Sheep in which I read books…well, to our sheep!

Irish Wolfhounds average only six to eight years. Liadan was seven when we bought our land in Duluth. She bounded happily with us on the trails of our birch forest. She coursed in our huge yard with my sons. She accompanied me as I tended garden, chickens, and rabbits.

She was almost nine when we faced leaving Minnesota. Her hips had pained her for months. My biggest fear was that she would die before we moved.

In 2023, we arrived in Tennessee. She followed me up and down our steep hills as I cared for animals. She loved our new sheep. When Chris brought home a 10-week-old Bernese Mountain Dog, they became fast companions.

In August 2024, Liadan’s hind legs collapsed as we came up the hill from the barn. I could no longer let her accompany me. From then on, she whined pitifully every day when I did my rounds without her.

I spent more and more time helping her get outside and cleaning her bedding. The last kids visiting for holidays left December 29. She immediately went downhill, as if she knew she’d seen her kids for the last time. We canceled New Year’s Eve plans to stay home with her.

She stopped struggling to go greet the Fed-Ex driver who loved her. One day she ‘held it’ more than 24 hours, unable to get up even with my help. I understood she would poison herself, rather than wet her bed. It was time.

We spent our last weekend with her, watching favorite movies, feeding her popcorn and hamburgers under the lights of the Christmas tree.

Monday arrived. I dreaded the ticking hours, bringing the vet ever closer. 1:00 came. He arrived late. I was grateful for the extra 20 minutes with Liadan. I sat on the floor, wearing the red skirt and black sweater I wore at Christmas her first year with us, when she’d been injured. Between her black coat and red cast, I realized my dog and I were dressed alike!

I’m the world’s biggest non-crier. I especially don’t cry in front of other people, not even my husband. But tears streamed down my cheeks as the vet tech prepped my dear girl. I looked into her beautiful golden eyes, one last time.

The vet injected the drugs of peace. Chris watched the light go out of her eyes. I felt her body relax. She was ready to go. That didn’t stop the heart break.

The vet helped Chris carry her out on a red sheet, to her grave by the garden. I tucked ‘Lambie’ into the sheet—the only toy she ever wanted. As the first snow of January fell, we covered her with dirt.

It’s great comfort having her at the end of our garden as I work.

I set out to understand more of medieval life. She taught me something of that, but she was such a profound gift beyond that, a gift in love.

I may always cry when I think of her. But I’m incredibly grateful we had so many years with her—a dog like no other.

Thank you, Laura, for that powerfully moving account of a truly wonderful breed. Liadan sounds like a very, very special dog. If you’d like to find out more about Laura and her writing, here are the links:

https://www.bluebellschronicles.com