Sir Oliver Cromwolf, RIP
Monday, October 29 2012
Yesterday my wife and I had to put down our beloved puppy. He was a King Charles springer spaniel we named Sir Oliver Cromwolf, for the irony.
For me, he was like the child I never had. We buried him at the edge of the cemetery behind our house… it’s probably illegal to bury him there, but he was like people to us.
We buried him with his favorite toy, a femur he dug up somewhere back there – he used to carry it around in his mouth like a fuzzy little Tyrannosaurus Rex!
People who say dogs are stupid have obviously never met Sir Oliver. I was always amazed at what an astute judge of character he was; he really could see into people’s true hearts. For example, he took an instant dislike to my third wife’s son. Sir Oliver disliked the boy so much, we had to send him (the son) to boarding school. Sure enough, he came back “gay”, just to spite us.
Sir Oliver used to have the worst poop shame, and would insist on being taken out before dawn and waiting until night to go again. He liked to bury his poo, so the only place he would go was the sandbox in the neighborhood playground.
He also used to bark furiously at minorities – black people, hispanics, gays, women, Unitarians, etc. – which could be embarrassing whenever delivery boys, lawn workers, or other service personnel came to our house.
But again, his judgment was spot on; one night we found him barking and scratching at the door to the basement. It turned out our Mexican housekeeper had been stealing food, and Sir Oliver knew that if you let twelve-year-olds get away with that sort of thing, next they’ll be demanding an education and more than half-an-hour of outside time. We had her deported the very next day.
Sir Oliver was with us for twenty-five years. Towards the end, he was deaf, blind, and had arthritis so bad he could not walk. He had no teeth to chew his food, so we had to feed him pureed ground beef mixed with chocolate Ensure. He would sit in his doggy bed all day, waiting for his bottle of beef-shake.
After seven years of this, we decided we didn’t want to see him suffer, and had him put down. He will always be missed.
Twenty-five years? Amazing. So sorry for your loss. It sounds like your dog had a hell of a good life, though. And I’m glad he had what sound like awesome people to spend it with.
(In my life, it’s just me and my dog, so I know how much of a family they can become.)
Thanks, but just to be clear, this post is a joke. I do not have a dog to mourn. Nor do I have a stepson, an underage domestic servant, or more than one marriage to my name. I apologize for any confusion — note the tag ‘affect’ on this post, which I use to indicate items I intend to be humorous.
JFC, that’s what I get for not reading the whole post before work in a coffee less haze and thinking oh so sad.
Now you have me paranoid my disease is going after the gray matter, happy now?
<– (winkie emoticon to ensure sarcasm is obvious even to those as dull as I).
Carry on. I shall gracefully accept my total fail at life.
(Still appreciate your blog.)
Shit, I just read the whole post closely. I have FAILED at the Internet.
Laura — I’ve been meaning to reply: in a way, your comments made my day. I am not sure why the idea of someone taking the fake obit seriously is so amusing. Maybe because the narrator — the ‘character’ writing the obit — is such an awful person, and the idea that however bad this person is, we can still identify with his grief over a beloved pet… Anyway, thanks.