Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/08/03
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]The best dog I've ever known is gone, my friend and companion of 13 years. http://users.2alpha.com/~pklein/currentpics/HarpoLapBW5.jpg http://users.2alpha.com/~pklein/currentpics/harpolean.htm http://users.2alpha.com/~pklein/currentpics/paula_harpo.htm http://users.2alpha.com/~pklein/E1/P4190807Harpo.jpg Harpo was diagnosed with diabetes three years ago. Katya and I managed to keep him alive and happy for those three years despite the odds. All it took was insulin shots twice a day, a special diet, the same amount of exercise each day, a lot of love, and mass quantities of money to our vet. It was worth every bit of effort and every penny. Harpo had a terrier-beagle heritage, with the most endearing combination of terrier intelligence and feistiness, and beagle sweetness and eagerness to please. Once we got his blood sugar levels stable, he was pretty much the same dog he'd always been. There were changes--no more table scraps, and no more hiking in the mountains with us. But he adjusted gracefully, and still found joy in what he could do. His condition required that he "go out" frequently, and he learned to use a doggie door at age 10, proving that you *can* teach an old dog new tricks. Harpo was a "people dog." His greatest joy was just being with us and participating in everything we did. Once, during a walk with my in-laws, he refused to go home with only my mother-in-law, sitting and refusing to budge until my father-in-law came out of the library. This prompted my father-in-law to proclaim ever after in his thick Russian accent, "Kharpo hez femily values." My mother-in-law called him an "exquisite creature." Harpo loved everyone, licked everyone , and greeted his extra-special friends with a cross between a howl, a yodel and a Wagnerian high C. Every evening when I came home from work, he would curve his body into a C-shape and rub his side against me, making sure I knew I was the most important person in the world. Most of my evening LUG posts were written with him lying at my feet, or more likely, *on* them. He was fine on Sunday, Monday he stopped eating. Tuesday he could barely walk. Today a test result showed that his liver was failing rapidly, probably a long-term result of the diabetes. He had only a few days of painful decline left if we did nothing, so we did the kind thing. And I did a lot of crying tonight. --Peter