Ode to a Good Dog

Were he alive today , our beloved golden retriever would have been 16 years old . But about 20 months ago, Rameses finally succumbed to the maladies of old age and illness, leaving us with am old leash and collar, an urn of ashes, a small headstone given to us by our daughter, a bunch of pictures and hundreds of wonderful memories . Some of those memories are what I will attempt to share . This is still difficult for me , although I know he was just a dog . And to the casual observer, he was nothing special , had no great talents or skills except that he loved his people , his family . I wish that I could chronicle these memories in some semblance of order but alas they choose not to return that way . So here goes .

Rameses dearly loved ” his boy ” , our son Jon,  for many reasons . One of the neatest memories occurs just over 7 years ago when  Jon called on his way home from college for the first time , a very long drive . When he called from about 2 hours away , we told Rameses that Jon was coming . He promptly went to the front  door and looked out . Not seeing anybody , he looked at us as if to say , where is my boy , you said he was coming ? So he proceeded to wait right there until Jon arrived.

Rameses seemed to love everybody and kinda thought the world and many of its occupants were on site just for his benefit . Scratch my ears , rub my tummy , how bout a biscit, time for a walk etc . But he had his favorites . We left the radio on many days when he was home alone and kept it tuned to WGPS , a local Christian station . The station broadcasts  sermons of Pastor Chuck Smith from Costa Mesa , Ca  somewhat regularly . I was fond of telling people that he was Rameses’ favorite preacher because of his kindly voice and  his teaching methods ,Rameses  said  he  must love dogs also . With a  favorite preacher , one must have a favorite musical group and so he did , Caedmon’s Call , a somewhat mellow , folky Christian group ( an area where he and his boy differed quite a bit ) .

Obviously , this could go on and on , but I will close for now with this . We all nickname our pets and our dog had many attached to him . One of the best came from Jon and was simply ” The Dog ” . When Jon and I would talk from Florida of Georgia or whereever he was the conversation would often end like this . Rameses said to remember that he is still ” The Dog “

The response, Indeed he is . And so he shall remain .