In Memory of Cloey
August 7, 1994- April 27, 2008

I saw Cloey on the FBRN website very shortly after FBRN came online in August, 2001. She was the girl with the wicked gleam in her eye and the giant green dumbbell. From the moment she swanned into my life, I was in her thrall. Cloey, short for Clothilde, was a more or less benevolent despot, and I was a more or less willing serf.

She insisted on having things just so. The toys were all to be piled in a heap, so she could lie on them and play "Dragon Guards Her Hoard." She could not leave a ball alone. Once, a soccer ball unaccountably found its way into my yard, and she played with it so hard and long that the soccer ball lost its skin and Cloey lost the black on her nose. Took weeks to come back. In the meanwhile she wore her pink shnozz as a badge of honor and a sign of her triumph.

Cloey loved Granny Smith apples. She would dance for them. She didn't dance because I asked her to, she danced because she felt the need to express her joy at the prospect of APPLE! She liked bananas, too, but she was apple-mad.

She was smarter than any dog I've ever had. It took her only two tries to learn "Find the toy!" and she could locate the dogcatcher with its unique upstanding profile no matter where I put it, or how it was placed. In the tub on its back;on the bed, wedged between the pillows; under the table, standing upright. Once I released her from her stay, she would search the house until she found it. She would not quit. Quitting would have been beneath her. Quitting was simply not in Cloey's code.

She was not a dog who pandered to her people by clowning around, and though she occasionally demanded a walk or a game of tug of war, she rarely demanded attention. If she did demand attention and it was not forthcoming, she would make a show of climbing into a chair and turning her back on the company. We had ceased to exist in her kingdom, then. We were dead to her. Oh, she was a rotten dog!

Cloey was an elegant old girl, deafened by the years and blinded by sudden acquired retinal degeneration. She was 14, soon to be 15, when she stopped eating and drinking. A week of tests showed nothing physically wrong with her. She was tired. The head that had borne the crown so regally and well for such a long time just wanted rest.

There will never be another dog for me like Cloey. I'm not sure whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, but it is the truth. I will miss Her Rotten Majesty until I die. Every day, until I die, I'll miss her.

Kate Ghiselin