My brave friend, Moose, died this morning. He was quite old, nobody knows how old, and it was blessedly fast. I, for one, will miss him enormously.

Moose came to my friends, Jerry and Loretta, through Weim Rescue. He had been stray for a long time and had been, it’s suspected, hit by vehicles while stray, possibly more than once, and vets who saw his x-rays said it was a miracle he could walk at all. But walk he did, in his Moosie way, crooked and shambling, and sometimes stumbling, but he never let the pain nor the awkwardness of his gait stop him from getting where he wanted to go.

When I met all of them, Moose was still somewhat wary of anybody and everybody, having joined their household not long before that. He was known to be snappish and ill tempered. For some reason, and I’ll never know why, he was never that way with me. He and I bonded almost from the very first moment we met, and ours was a very special friendship. It didn’t take long before I first experienced the Moosie Lean, where he would pin me against a wall by leaning against me so that I was captive, and he could demand ear and back scratches and do the Moosie Moan of Joy.

He had a habit of biting any offending animal or person on the butt, and his aim was usually true, if his speed suffered a bit. But he did once manage to snag Speedo Syd on the butt when we were both staying down there dogsitting. And Jerry tells the tale of Marvin, the chicken who got tired of Moosie Butt Bites, and ran away. But Moose never bit my butt. I think he loved me as much as I loved him.

As I got to know everybody and spent time in their household we saw a change come over Moose, and his last five years seemed to be very happy ones. He’d take his Morning Moosie Meanders with the other two dogs, and manage, after a few false starts, to get the right foot coming up the porch stairs to come in the house. He eventually turned from a dog who’d bite anyone to a dog who was known to kiss the MailPerson and the UPS gal, sometimes in embarassing places, since one of them kept the doggie treats in a front shirt pocket. It was a gradual but stunning metamorphosis, and one that was truly miraculous.

We’ll miss you, Moose.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 18th, 2007 at 11:48 am and is filed under Personal Stuff. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.