Nearly 14 years ago, we took a road trip to rural South Carolina to pick up a puppy. My mother had recently lost her Miniature Schnauzer, Mozart, so it was time to bring another canine family member into the house. Along with my 12-year-old son, the three of us drove three+ hours to the middle of nowhere, where we traversed a long gravel driveway to a double-wide trailer.
It wasn’t what I was expecting, since this was an expensive parti-colored Miniature Schnauzer puppy my mother had found online from a breeder. I pictured we’d be driving down a tree-line driveway with four-board fencing and maybe a few horses grazing in the well-tended fields. Nevertheless, this tiny bundle of fur they handed to my mother was just what my parents needed to keep their house a home.
My father, an opera aficionado, named him after Puccini, but spelled it the “dog” way. It was a perfect fit.
Poochini spent the rest of his long life sleeping on the tops of furniture, taking long walks around the neighborhood with my mom and generally running the household. He welcomed most people but was territorial about his home and yard with other dogs. He also had a penchant for running off to explore whenever a door was left open or he could slip out the backyard gate. Fortunately, he was always found and mostly wanted to mark the nearby houses to let them know he was boss dog.
Poochini was a super picky eater, especially toward the end of his life when congestive heart failure required four pills twice a day be administered. It was frustrating to try and hide his pills in his food. You had a 50-50 chance of him spitting them out on the floor, where hopefully you would find them before someone crushed them when walking through the kitchen. The last six months of his life he ate warmed Publix fried chicken almost exclusively, requiring us to keep the fridge stocked at all times. He would sometimes accept a rotisserie chicken, but his true love was the fried skin.
When I took him to the cardiologist back in 2023, he was given six to 18 months. Thankfully, he didn’t listen to the veterinarian and stretched it out to more than two years. As it turned out, he was born with a heart murmur, which we monitored and controlled until December 30. While he always bounced back with a double dose of medication during his bad spells, the night of December 29th was different. When we woke up the next morning, it was obvious that he was too tired to continue the fight.
Poochini was faithful until the end, letting us know through his deep brown eyes, slightly gray from age, that his time on earth was concluded. I’m thankful that Dr. King at PetVet fit us in that morning, and Pooch was relieved of his struggle and left us peacefully but with broken hearts. We will miss you Pooch…and hopefully you and Hal will enjoy listening to operas again together in Heaven.