(no subject)
Ilsa, or more formally, Ilsa T. Dog, has passed beyond this mortal realm. My mother spoke to me, and told me that she had to put her to sleep.
Ilsa was an ancient dog - she was brought in as a puppy while I was still living at home, and I spent a good ten years with her before I moved out. Years later, and here we are. Ilsa had a long, full life, hampered only by one thing: She was completely insane.
She had her quirks, both physical and mental. She was somewhat scratch ‘n’ dent when we got her; this did not improve as she was known to run headlong towards the fence in an attempt to either smash through it, or was actually just really bad at jumping.
Ilsa loved people, and was playful with anyone we introduced her to… except small children. Occasionally, she would get so wound up by them, she would actually chew at her leash trying to break free and silence their high pitched voices, but these incidents were few and far between, and she didn’t seem to remember five minutes later anyway.
Ilsa enjoyed swimming, and often swam in the pool on hot days, till her hair clogged up the filter costing my parents somewhere in the neighborhood of five thousand dollars to repair.
Ilsa loved cats. That’s all I will say about that.
In her later years, Ilsa smelled INSANELY bad. There may have been a two-minute period after a bath when she had normal, regular wet dog smell, but that ended, fast, as she would find something to roll around in that we had just washed off. Her breath was worse. I can’t even describe what it smelled like without getting nauseous. Over the years, a variety of methods were employed to improve the situation - minty dog bones, wintergreen biscuits - but to no avail. It was as if her body redoubled its stinking efforts to compensate for the puny works of man.
More than once in his later years, my dad joked that Ilsa must have died years earlier, and what they were keeping was a zombie. All things considered, he might well have been right.
But I’ll still miss that zombie.
Not her breath. Bless her heart.
Ilsa was an ancient dog - she was brought in as a puppy while I was still living at home, and I spent a good ten years with her before I moved out. Years later, and here we are. Ilsa had a long, full life, hampered only by one thing: She was completely insane.
She had her quirks, both physical and mental. She was somewhat scratch ‘n’ dent when we got her; this did not improve as she was known to run headlong towards the fence in an attempt to either smash through it, or was actually just really bad at jumping.
Ilsa loved people, and was playful with anyone we introduced her to… except small children. Occasionally, she would get so wound up by them, she would actually chew at her leash trying to break free and silence their high pitched voices, but these incidents were few and far between, and she didn’t seem to remember five minutes later anyway.
Ilsa enjoyed swimming, and often swam in the pool on hot days, till her hair clogged up the filter costing my parents somewhere in the neighborhood of five thousand dollars to repair.
Ilsa loved cats. That’s all I will say about that.
In her later years, Ilsa smelled INSANELY bad. There may have been a two-minute period after a bath when she had normal, regular wet dog smell, but that ended, fast, as she would find something to roll around in that we had just washed off. Her breath was worse. I can’t even describe what it smelled like without getting nauseous. Over the years, a variety of methods were employed to improve the situation - minty dog bones, wintergreen biscuits - but to no avail. It was as if her body redoubled its stinking efforts to compensate for the puny works of man.
More than once in his later years, my dad joked that Ilsa must have died years earlier, and what they were keeping was a zombie. All things considered, he might well have been right.
But I’ll still miss that zombie.
Not her breath. Bless her heart.