Losing A Beloved Dog

Peter Hornby • July 14, 2008

Orac, who writes the essential Respectful Insolence blog, is a surgeon/scientist who is possibly the internet's premier debunker of pseudo-medical junk. Orac is also a wonderful writer. Never was this displayed to better effect than in this morning's eulogy for his beloved dog Echo, who died of cancer on Friday. It's just heartrending.

Lots of tears in the comments, and not a few from me, someone who is not normally given to such things. Part of the the reason is that Echo is almost an identical twin of my family's dog Peppi, a gorgeous black mostly-Labrador who was my responsibility as a teenager. The similarity is more than physical. Peppi was as good-natured a dog as it's possible to imagine. The image of Echo sleeping on the bed, and steadily wriggling so that by morning she has most of the bed to herself, is one which is also part of my memory of Peppi. And, oh boy, did she love rolling in cow manure! She wasn't treated to corn on the cob, mainly since in England I don't believe we'd heard of it. But she would go crazy for what we would call "bun cases", which doesn't translate too well from the English, but refers to the little paper cups muffins are baked in. She preferred the bun cases to the buns.Peppi arrived in our family as a tiny puppy when I was about eleven. She lived to be an old lady, and died happy, I think. I'm now fifty-three, and old and grey. But her memory is still strong within me, three decades after she passed out of my life.

Orac has my deepest sympathy.