Our “Beagle Boy”

The Christmas shortly after I turned 5 (Christmas of 1996), my parents got two puppies. I had never had a pet before, and was shocked to open a box on Christmas morning containing two dog bowls, two leashes, two collars, and a video. They put the video in the VCR and it was of them picking out our two new dogs, both young puppies-about 8 weeks old. After going through various sets of names, we settled on Simon and Schuster. Schuster died in 2006. Last Friday, we had to take Simon in to be put to sleep. It was sad for us all. Below the picture is a “tribute” of sorts, written by my Dad.

Simon’s big brown eyes seemed almost human at times in their variety of expressions. Through his eyes he smiled, pleaded, showed shame, loved and asked to be loved — and of late, cried. But there was more to his manner that made us feel as if we were having a conversation with him. He would walk over, sit on his haunches, lift one paw and motion that he really needed to be petted. His gratefulness and pleasure at having his ears scratched came from deep within in the form of guttural moanings that encouraged more. Satisfied on one end, he’d turn to have his back scratched.
As the son of at least one beagle, his ears, of course, were large and equally expressive. When he focused all his senses on some matter — often the prospect of food — he’d pull them up and forward. Sometimes, though, if he cocked his head back quickly and at a certain angle, his ears would flop open and remain extended, so large he reminded me of the Flying Nun.
Still, the feature that most defined his personality was his nose. No dog ever followed his nose more than Simon. He lived to eat, to find something more that could be eaten. He carefully monitored every movement his masters made through their kitchen. Trained to stay out while I was in it, he waited for the floor to clear then moved in to carefully smell for whatever tiny crumb might be eaten. He swept up many times a day. Sometimes he ate things he shouldn’t — the other dogs’ food, for example and on a rare occasion, our own if it were left in his reach. Once, a freshly baked loaf of bread mysteriously disappeared. There was not a trace of it left over. Simon was, to put it crudely, a pig. But sometimes he was a cow, eating copious quantities of grass to try to help move something through his system that he shouldn’t have eaten. This sometimes transpired on our walks around the block — walking our cow, I’d say. If he wasn’t eating the grass, he seemed intent to trying to smell every passing blade for clues about his neighbors-in-kind. Sometimes he’d plant his nose so firmly, we had to pull hard to get him to move along. Still, we loved him.
He woke us Thursday morning crying and virtually unable to move. We helped him up and as he moved, he seemed to have lost use of his left hind leg. The right had been weakened by arthritis, but now he was putting all his weight on his right and dragging his left. The diagnosis: a large, inoperable tumor that also apparently began robbing him of the ability to perform basic bodily functions. Simon’s good life ended yesterday morning at 9. I scratched his ears throughout the procedure and clutched him tightly in my arms for a good long while before, during and after. Simon the Diamond was 13, and we’ll surely miss him, mostly especially how happy he was when we came home, an event that always –and oddly — called for a quick trip to his water bowl. I guess he was toasting our arrival.