Newt, my dad’s Weimaraner, was put to sleep today even though some of his closest friends had still not learned to pronounced the name of his breed. Newt was a good dog, as most dogs are. He was known for being slightly spastic, but overly friendly. He enjoyed nothing so much as a good petting, and one of his favorite moves was to walk to the nearest lap, lay his head in it, and fall asleep. Now, you biology majors may know that dogs cannot sleep standing up, and are thus keen on what would happen when Newt’s attention went from standing to sleeping. He usually woke up before completely crashing to the ground, but never without creating a humorous scene. His talents included hunting pheasants and tap dancing on wood floors. Things that made him sad were water and my cat, Magma. (Let Newt’s friendly personality not be faulted though; Magma always went out of her way to be mean to him). Newt has long suffered from a tumor on his spleen, but wagged his stub of a tail until his last days, and went out with a wry smile at having made it happily through 12 years of life, interrupted by only 2 baths.
My dad is what most people (short of Rush Limbaugh) would call Ridiculously Republican. He skips around on Election Day in a red tie with a conservative gleam in his eye. For this reason, many of Newt’s associates assumed that he was named for the Speaker of the House presiding during the year of his birth. That would be a really pathetic way to name a dog. Fortunately, someone more pathetic than my father named Newt. Twelve years ago, on a farm in western Minnesota, a man named Newton was breeding champion Weimaraners. He christened each of his pups as his own namesake (i.e. “Newton, Jr.”, “Newtina”, “Newt”, etc.). If George Foreman can do it, nameless horse farmers in the Midwest can too.
I am slightly concerned about Newt riding the elevator to heaven (Newt’s hips were wearing out on him, so we know he’s not taking the staircase), because he recently proved himself not very adept at elevator travel. On the first day I returned from Mexico, my mom and I got out Newt’s fancy, self-winding leash and took him for a walk by the Mississippi River. We boarded the elevator back up to the apartment and I began reading the announcement posting to my mother. Floor 18 arrived, Mom got off the elevator, Newt followed her, the doors closed, and I was left inside, holding the handle of Newt’s leash. The elevator began to descend. I began franticly feeding out extra leash line with one hand, and with the other hitting buttons on the elevator’s control panel. Floors above, Newt was dragged back towards the elevator doors as my mom tried to free his neck from his collar. I heard the leash snap and shortly thereafter managed to turn the elevator around. When the doors reopened on 18, after seeing Newt OK, I began to laugh hysterically. This was an incident the likes of which was only previously conceived in Woody Allen scripts. Unfortunately, sometime during this trauma, my father had also arrived on location. His face’s red hue was not, this time, to show his political leanings, but rather in outrage: first, at the abuse of his dog; and, second, and more emphatically, at the fact that I broke the fancy leash.
Newt stopped riding the elevator with me after that, and I would bet he’s glad I’m not with him now. With apologies, I wish him a safe and comfortable trip up. And, don’t worry Newt, I have on good confidence that they don’t have leashes in heaven… not even the fancy ones.
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