Maisie Edelstein was born sometime in September, 1993, in Ravena, a hamlet in upstate New York. Little is known of the first eighteen months of her life except that at some point an accident, thought likely to have involved a car, resulted in the amputation of half of her tail. It was also known that she was called ‘Spike’, due to the inability of her owners to identify the fact that she was female. )
Maisie became an Edelstein on the 14th of January, 1995, only a few hours after she had been deposited at the Saratoga Animal Shelter by the people who called her Spike; unlike the other dogs who had been there for some time, she was gazing curiously through the bars of her cage rather than woofing, which led the family to believe that she was particularly docile. ‘That one seems nice,’ said Fiona Edelstein. Maisie maintained a bark-free mien for a full 24 hours. It was, for her, a tremendous display of restraint.
Maisie was quickly assimilated into the family, who were mongrels themselves: although originally misidentified as a blend of Labrador and something else, it soon became apparent that she was in fact a descendant of Border collies, who hailed from the same part of Scotland as Fiona; she loved eating Passover matzos, which moved Grandpelstein to declare that she must certainly be a Jewish dog. Maisie also loved going outside, eating cheese, and a select few other dogs; she staunchly disliked strangers in her garden and being picked up by anyone other than her dad.
Whilst often prone to debate and disagreement, the family was rarely unanimous in terms of their opinion of Maisie: she was passionately loved by all. In return, Maisie passionately loved the family back: bounding to the door every time they came home; allowing floods of angsty adolescent tears to soak in to her fluffy black fur; growling as if she weighed more than 40-odd pounds whenever she perceived any kind of danger to be near, although the danger usually involved small boys on bicycles or the vacuum cleaner, both of which she had a tendency to chomp.
Maisie loved company, and would seek it out whenever possible, from crouching under the kitchen table during Sunday pancake breakfasts, curling up during piano practices or lying across a newspaper that was spread on the floor so that the reader would be forced to pay attention to her rather than the financial pages. Moving to Baltimore during her twilight years proved to be an exciting opportunity for Maisie to discover a whole new world of sights and smells; moreover, she provided the family with a precious sense of continuity despite the sale of their longtime family home.
But just over two years after that move, on 28th August, 2009, having lived longer than most dogs of her size manage, Maisie Edelstein died of old age. She will be sorely missed.
