Taps

Bu is well already, but the vet had bad news about Sophie. She's down to 83 pounds from her usual 120+, and the lump in her nose is cancer. Nadia the vet suggests that we put her down. It breaks my heart, but it also breaks my heart to see my girl suffer. Nadia's going to come out to my in-laws' place to give Sophie the injection so that we can bury her right there, next to Bu's horse chestnut tree. We'll remember her the way Lord Byron remembered his Newfoundland:

Near this spot
Are deposited the Remains of one
Who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferocity,
And all the Virtues of Man without his Vices.
This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
If inscribed over human ashes,
Is but a just tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a DOG
Who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803,
And died at Newstead, Nov 18th, 1808.

Midnite Bay's Sophia Brindisi was born August 9, 1991 outside Lincoln, Nebraska, and she will be buried in West Branch, Iowa. Her parents were champions, and she is the finest dog I ever met in every way. She swam in the Atlantic and the Pacific, which is as much like heaven as any Newfoundland could want, I think.