Our Friend Zoe

Today we said a very sad goodbye to our old friend Zoe Begonia Nichols. Zoe was 14 years old and lived a long and very spoiled dog life. This weekend her age simply caught up with her, and she was suffering. Steve and I were with her this morning at the vet's office holding her as she went.

I first met Zoe when I was 21 -- before Steve; before Catsworth the Wonder Cat; before Gabby the Labby; and before Andrew, Adam, and Libby. Zoe was 6 weeks old at our first meeting. I was trying to convince her little blond littermate to like me (with no success); all the while a certain pushy little redhaired puppy followed and nosed me relentlessly until I picked her. Better put, she picked me.

Through my single years, Zoe was an exuberant friend and the "heartbeat at my feet." She stuck with me through the bringing home of one husband, a couple other pets, and several babies. I know she didn't sign on to share me with so many people and other animal friends, but she never said a cross word. (There were a few reproachful glances and sighs, though.) She was the perfect patient dog for the many young children who crawled over her, tugged on her ears, and dropped countless morsels of forbidden people food conveniently into her waiting mouth.

Probably our favorite characteristic of Zoe was her weaselfulness. If you don't believe that "weaselfulness" is a word, then you obviously never met Zoe in her heyday. She could out-weasel an entire gang of weasels. In her early years, she specialized in the "I have to go out in the dead of night" ruse in order to be invited into my bed every night. Her trickery in obtaining extra meals was legendary. Even late in her life Zoe could fool us into giving her a second dinner with the "No one's fed me yet" face. I am embarrassed to admit I was both victimized and delighted by her weaselfulness over and over again.

Zoe's arch nemeses were vacuum cleaners and squirrels. She finally came to a truce with the vacuum in her later years, thanks in large part to her profound deafness. But to the end, Zoe never could abide those squirrels. Smug little rodents with their complacent smirks and meaningless chatter...

Zoe was preceded in death by her canine partner in life and crime, Gabby; her fat, lazy feline friend Catsworth; and her cousin? aunt? Bailey, who shared her almost constant quiet exasperation with Gabby. Zoe is survived by extended family pets Cricket, Gus, Murray, and Sydney.

It is extremely weird after 14 years of pet ownership to find myself suddenly without a pet. I have almost asked Steve several times tonight if he's fed Zoe yet, proving, I suppose, that old dogs are not the only ones who cannot learn new tricks. Either that or Zoe's weaselful spirit carries on and is trying to convince me to give her one extra meal...

"If you have a dog, you will most likely outlive it; to get a dog is to open yourself to profound joy and, prospectively, to equally profound sadness." -- Marjorie Garber