So long, old pal

June 16th 2011:

We brought him home on the ferry, a fiery little puppy from the islands. He was the runt of the litter, stumpy legs and giant head and the pissiest little face you have ever seen. It had been love at first site.

He was a challenge, to be sure, this puppy that Chris named Priest, the most strong-willed puppy on the planet. He peed on every square inch of floor in our house, no matter how many times he was let out. At least once a week, we would hear Mama Kay screaming in the early morning hours as she skidded down the hall on a trail of poop (oh how he loved pooping right outside her bedroom door).

He ate countless shoes and socks, a wallet, a hundred dollar bill, snowboarding goggles, a week's worth of sandwich supplies, a box of nicorette, a 12 pack of toilet paper and so on... we won't even mention the time he ate a loaf of bread, bag and all, nor will we mention the ensuing drama caused by the passing of that bag (which had been swallowed whole). He dug the carpet up in front of our door and dug a tunnel from the backyard to the front. He went home with countless joggers, slipped his color and escaped fences, and had to be bailed out of doggy jail two or three times.

But, he was also gentle. A big, huggable bear that would sleep at the end of the bed and dance and chitter in his husky speak when you came home. And he loved his kitties, first Zone, his papa cat, then Oz and Fattie, who he would carry gently in his mouth when they were no bigger than his muzzle.

He to grew up to be a wonderful dog, albeit with some quirks, like eating used tissues from the trash and his "magic tricks" (look, I made your toast disappear!) and his ability to sleep soundly through just about anything.

When the earthquake hit Seattle in 2001, he was the only one in the house (maybe the city) to sleep through it. In 2006, when some punk tried to break into Kay's house in Phoenix, using hedge clippers to pry open a window, he also slept through that, leaving a groggy post-operation me to deal with scaring the bad guy off, only waking to acknowledge the arrive of the police with a disinterested snort from under the kitchen table.

I got an email today, from Mama Kay. The kind of email with a subject line that says "bad news"...

Priest was 12 years old. In Kay's words, "It seems like just yesterday we had this little black and white puppy on the ferry from Bainbridge, how quick 12 years can go by."

No more orca, no more froggy, no more devil dog... Beastie, you will be missed.