silly old mutt
You were the prettiest one out of the lot (as we told you any number of times), which is why we kept you, the rest of your litter given away for free over a few sunny afternoons in the summer of ’95. It was your white fur offset by a black spot above your tail, the bit of color around your eyes, the way your ears stood up. We decided you looked like a Muggsy, and it stuck.
You barked a lot when you were young, and never were all that well behaved when we took you out. Like that time we took you to the beach, and you tried to fight that other dog when you thought he was getting to close to us. And then that wasn’t quite enough to establish your territory, so you ran over to some other people’s towels and peed on them. But you loved the ocean, though, wanted to keep running into those waves as much as I did.
We brought you with us from our home in San Diego when the family moved to the Oregon countryside, and free of that little backyard in suburbia we discovered how much you loved to run. You had a hard time remembering you were supposed to stay with the house though — more than once we’d get to the end of our long, long driveway only to discover that you’d chased the car all the way to the road, and we’d have to put you in it to take you back.
We always babied you, and when I’d come home for the weekends you’d come up to me and I’d pet you and ask you to tell me how things were, and you’d start to whine, and then I’d say, “Is it that bad, Muggsy? Tell me a story!” and this would only encourage you to whine even more.
You had a really bad habit of sniffing everybody’s crotch. And neutered or not you had a really bad habit of humping things.
You were always our puppy, and I always thought of you that way, until I counted off how many years you’d been with us. Ten, then twelve, and maybe there’s something to this country living because you didn’t slow down too much till you were thirteen. Finally you hit fifteen years and change, and that’s a good long run for any dog. You couldn’t hear too well at all there near the end, and your legs started to give out, and you barely ate, and I wanted to you to just keep on hanging in there for another summer but that’s awful selfish of me if you couldn’t go out walking with us anymore.
If there are some Elysian Fields somewhere for dogs, endless fields of green bound only by blue skies above, I hope you’re running in them now as freely as you did when you were younger.
Stupid old dog. Sure am going to miss you.
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