Today marks the end of life of my mother's favored dog. This is in fact the third death in three months around these parts and the easiest perhaps since he was canine and not human. I bought him into the world and I saw him out of it. We don't know what went wrong but nothing could halt the decline, another commonality around here.

He was a good dog, as dogs go. A yapper and a devourer of socks. In his younger days he ate so much avocado (We had a tree) that his blood type was once actually measured as 'cream'. (It had a 4.7% fat content, which shouldn't be possible.) He was the runt of the litter, barely two inches long when whelped. He will be sorely missed by those who remain.