… where you, the reader, take over. Many many thanks to Mary Laiuppa for this, so touching and witty! Send in whatever you like to peter.b.abrahams@gmail.com.

Ramses was my third dog. Here is his bio:

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Ramses was born sometime between February 14 and February 28 of 2004. I chose February 23 so that made him a Pisces. I was looking for a dog born about 60 days after Caesar had passed, a labrador or doberman mix puppy. I had been reading A Little Dog like You by Rosemary Sutcliff.

His pregnant Mother was tied to a fence post in a field along a freeway north of San Diego. There she gave birth on one of the coldest nights of the year. A large little, not all of whom survived the night.

They were rescued and fostered but then the family got Parvo. I was supposed to pick him up at 8 weeks old but because of the Parvo he was 13 weeks by the time he had recovered enough. 7 of the puppies survived. The fosters didn’t think Ramses would survive and the Dad didn’t want the little puppy to die alone so he carried him around all of the time in one of those little baby carriers that is like a chest backpack. He survived (but then had mange by the time I got him) so as a puppy he always wanted to be picked up and carried. Until he didn’t.

Goliath was 12 by this time and not keen on having a little brother. Caesar was the same when when I got Goliath but eventually they became best buds. Goliath seemed a bit lost and listless after Caesar died and I though he might need a companion. I was hoping the same would happen with Goliath but he seem to get more irritated at Ramses and when it went from growling to snapping at him to an actual nip, Goliath retired to live with my parents in their quiet house in their quiet neighborhood.

Ramses became quite the snuggler and a bit clingy but I think the early stress of Goliath had a life long impact on him. He was always very reticent of new introductions, both canine and human. It wasn’t until he was a little old man that he finally started to really relax in the company of strangers.

I had always wanted a lab and Ramses was listed as a lab mix. That turned out to be totally wrong. At 5 months his lab ears suddenly stood straight up like a German Shepherd.

DNA testing was pretty new at that time but I had the test done.

20-35% Afghan Hound
20-35% Boston Terrier
10-20% Scottish Terrier
10-20% Keeshond
10% or less Weimaraner
10% or less Chihuahua
10% or less Dalmation

Then I saw it. His body was pretty much a small Afghan hound (55 lb), especially his nose but his ears were Boston Terrier. And when he ran towards me I could see that Boston Terrier gait. He had black polka dots in the patches of white fur on his chest and feet. None of it explained his love of water. Whenever we visited my sister he would end up in her pool. I would take him to the cove periodically so he could have a nice swim in the ocean. Caesar used to love that too. None of my other dogs like to swim, not even Diana who has some Golden Retriever.

I was still working when I got Ramses. I got him right before the summer break so had the summer to be with him and learn the routine of the house before I started working again. When I did, he found ways to amuse himself. He developed his own fetch game. He would take an empty nursery pot and stick his head in it and then toss it in the air and then run after it. He never did learn to catch anything in mid air. But he did love to fetch. When I would come home from school I would toss tennis balls for him down the north side of the house and he would run the length of the house to get them and then bring them back. He could do this for hours but I usually stopped at about 20 minutes.

While Ramses would occasionally empty a nursery pot of its contents so he could play his game, that was his only vice. He was not a digger or a chewer or a crotch sniffer. He did not jump up on you or drink out of the toilet. I never actually has to leash train him as he walked beside me on his own. He was the perfect gentleman.

His favorite thing was to go with me to my parent’s house because that is where his best friend Candy lived. That is also where we would take our walks. Walks around my neighborhood were very stressful for him as there were dogs in yards that would bark and that would stress him out. He was always hyper vigilent. But my parent’s neighborhood was very quiet so he got to know all of the neighbors around the route and two of the dogs that were friendly that would come out to greet us, Cali and Tucker.

I did try to take him to the dog park, both alone and with Candy. Now Candy, a lab mix, just loved it. She was a social butterfly and would go around greeting all of the people and the dogs and have a great time. Ramses stayed by my side on hyper alert, guarding me from all of the strange people and dogs. Not even Candy’s example could convince him to relax and enjoy the experience. We tried it for four weeks and he never did get any better so we stopped going to the dog park and limited his time to walks with Candy in my parent’s neighborhood. They had a large yard and I had a large yard and that was enough for him.

He may not have loved to dress up but he tolerated it extremely well, especially the hats. So Halloween became his thing. He had several outfits, he was a witch with a hat and green hair, had a pumpkin hat and one year I used white hair spray to make a line down his back and he was a skunk. His best outfit was Superdog.

“He did have his quirks. At 9pm he would come to me and put his head on my lap because he wanted to go to sleep but I would be watching TV. So he would then take himself to the bedroom and put himself to sleep IN MY SPOT. But after the news, at 11:30 when I came in and started to undress, he would get up and move over so when I got in the bed my spot was nice and warm.”

And that is where he died. He was 14 years old and 9 months. The oldest dog I ever had. I didn’t have much warning. He had had a mast cell tumor removed from his back the previous February. He had already been showing signs of old age. He had trouble walking and getting up and down steps. I had been picking him up to put in the bed and then putting him back on the floor in the morning for quite some time. The pain meds from the surgery really helped him so I thought arthritis and asked if they could be continued. But he started to lose his appetite and showed other signs so the vet finally did the x-ray I had been requesting for over a year. Cancer. Bone cancer in his pelvis. He also had problems with elevated potassium and four discs in his back were gone so that explained the mobility and pain. The doctor said it would be a race between heart failure and his bones breaking. She said a few weeks. Ten days later his heart won on November 23, 2018 while snuggling with me in bed and being told what a good dog he was. He had a wonderful day the day before. He took a walk with Candy and said goodbye to all of his friends including Cali and Tucker and all of the neighbors. But Thanksgiving day he was just tired and not feeling well so I made some calls and begged off Thanksgiving to stay with him. I had already made a vet appointment for us for Saturday but being the gentleman he was his entire life, he relieved me of that last burden by passing on his own terms. He was a very good boy.