The Whackadoodle II.

AllHisDad'sMadchens

'RUsVille


We had to put the Whackadoodle down just as the pandemic began late last March.

Her real name was Rosie and she had a congenital heart defect that gradually got worse with time. In the end she couldn't make it up back stairs after she'd been out for one of her frequent pees underneath the hydrangea that grows up against the garage.

A spaniel-poodle cross, I was skeptical when Rosie first arrived at our house given that she was both little and excitable. However, she had such an agreeable disposition and was so up for anything that I really grew to love her over the years, never so much as when we took our weekly walks on the beach with the guitar. In fact, she didn't once complain about the 'music' - even when it involved warbled mash-ups of  of stuff like Martha Wainwright's BMFAHole and Van the Man's Astral Weeks.

For the past year or so the guitar and I have been taking those beach walks all on our own. Unlike when I was with the Whackadoodle, many passerby clearly find it a little strange to come upon a man in his early sixties, strings in hand. Still, I always slow down part way to pat the tangled skeleton of a washed up arbutus tree that somehow reminds me of Rosie. Then I head for the halfway point where we used to stop for treats, most often apple fritter bits from the Breka on Fraser near 49th avenue, followed by a little bit of leisurely newspaper reading and a whole lot of stick throwing/chasing at the water's edge before we packed up, headed back and started in on the mash-ups.

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Now that the kids have moved out, pretty much for good I think, it wasn't immediately clear that we would get another dog.

Then, early in the New Year, C. started talking about it.

And in mid-March an eight week-old Whackadoodle II arrived.

Same breed, different colour, and now that her shots are all done she's ready for the beach, which is where we went early yesterday morning.

It took quite a while, but after a whole lot of stick soccer and rapid-fire sand digging we finally made it out to the treat spot - all healthy bits this time around though - promise.

I'm not really sure yet if Tilly/W-II likes the music. Hopefully, at the very least, she will learn to tolerate it.

Selah.

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Subheader courtesy David Sedaris who tells the story of his family's many pet lineages, including the great danes Madchen I and Madchen II,  in both audio and linear type form.

Our entire family went to see Springsteen when he brought Clarence and  the Circus to town in the spring of 2008...I'd like to think that that show had something to do with littler e.'s suggestion that we name the original Whackadoodle Rosalita when she arrived later that summer.


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