RIP Samwise Doggee, 9/20/2008 – 7/30/2020. You came to us from GRRIN without a fancy name like Zoey had, just Sam 12-something for your Dog That Year rescued, but we ended up calling you all sorts of things and we’re going to miss you hard.
We adopted Sam in 2012; he was one of two Sams that year. Today osteosarcoma finally caught up with him, but he was a good-natured gentleman to the very end.
Sam was quite pleased when we bought him a Subaru Forester, and it took about 20 minutes to coax him out of it the first time.
Cancer is stupid and dogs should never leave.
Pablo Neruda has a good poem on this, which reads in part:
“[M]y dog used to gaze at me,
paying me the attention I need,
the attention required
to make a vain person like me understand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
he’d keep on gazing at me
with a look that reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, never troubling me,
and asking nothing.
Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea’s movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean’s spray.
Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.”
With permission from Sam’s family, please visit this link to view a beautiful tribute to Sam and his adventures.
