Henry 1998-2014

It’s a funny thing about dogs.  Their presence in our lives is often ethereal. Sometimes we see them, touch them, talk to them or play with them.  But many times we just feel them –  we hear the patter of their paws or the jingle of their collar or a long sigh or deep breath- and we are comforted by them without even knowing it.

Henry was always  a deep thinker.  You could see it in his eyes- that soulful yearn to make it all better for the ones he loved.  If anyone in our home was hurting,  he was there.  He was always the first there.. even after he couldn’t walk anymore and he had to scoot his way over.  He was the one who would wait by the door every single minute of every single day.. whether we were gone for the day or just in the bathroom or the basement.   That’s one of the things I will miss the most, I think, having him at the other side of every door greeting us with a bounce and a happy whine.

Henry came to us by way of Chicago for Jake’s 3rd birthday.  His owners couldn’t keep him anymore so we drove up to get him.  He was a lover from the start and I was immediately enamored by him.  Almost everyone who met him fell in love.

 

It’s difficult to have a memory of Jake without a memory of Henry to go along with it.  He was always there, interwoven into everything special in our lives in the past 15 years.  He wore hats for every birthday and Santa Clause scarves for  Christmas and he was at the door after every  “first day of school” for Jake from 3 day 3’s through his Senior year.  Sometimes he was in the background, but usually he did something that would make us laugh.  Because, above all, Henry was hilarious.

 

He was typical Corgi in some ways,  incredibly stubborn and always displaying a dry sense of humor.  Sometimes he would just shoot a look over like ” you are the strangest person I know”..  or  ” I am so utterly bored with you right now”.   I captured that look a lot in photography because he gave it to me almost every time I tried to photograph him.   He knew what I wanted from him as a canine supermodel and he delighted in not giving it to me.

Henry rarely got into trouble but when he did it was almost always because of his zest for food.

 

 

Because of Henry’s advanced food thievery skills, we had to feed Daisy in a stand so he couldn’t reach her bowl.  We have to keep all dog food is in bins because Henry would somehow get into the closet and chew the bottom out of all the food bags.  I still don’t know how he did it time after time.  Once I went up to my office to find that Henry had somehow managed to get my photography bag down from the counter and he had taken out ALL of the treats.  He didn’t leave a single bag unopened, a single toy unchewed or a single treat uneaten.  Guilty on all counts, of course, but not remorseful.

 

Tolerance was one of Henry’s great strengths.  He tolerated- and even learned to love- the two dogs we brought into his world.  Daisy was smaller than him for about two weeks, so he did get to beat up on her for a short time.  But those tables turned quickly and he took her play in stride.  Then we brought little Tater in almost two years ago and Henry eventually welcomed him too.

For the past few months, Henry has tolerated the loss of his back legs.  We tried everything to keep the degenerative disease at bay: acupuncture, laser therapy, chiropractic care- you could pretty much name it and we’ve tried it.  it worked for a few years but nothing could hold his disease off forever.  I waited for a sign that he was unhappy, that he was tired of life and didn’t want to be here with us any longer.  I dreaded it but my vision was for him to be at home, surrounded by us all and happy to the end.   I didn’t anticipate the diagnosis of cancer and bursting tumors that came this morning but I knew it would be cruel to let him suffer on.  And he went very peacefully and we were all there around him. It was the best we could do for him.

Dogs are a treasure, there is no doubt about that.  They love us  with all of their little beings, and they have a kindness in them that we could never match.  We just aren’t made that way.  We aren’t capable of being so devoted, of forgetting ourselves completely in our incessant quest to please and love. That’s what makes a dog like Henry so hard to lose.   It’s not just the memories and it’s not just the companionship.  It’s knowing that no matter what I did or what happened in my life, I would always find that look of complete and utter love in those big brown eyes.

Be good, little one. We love you always. Thank you for being such a wonderful gift to us all.