Eulogy for Beau


I woke up yesterday to the very sad news that Beau, one of my family's dogs, had been found dead, hit by a car.

This is the email my father sent:

To paraphrase an iconic southern writer, my dog is dead and I don’t feel so good myself.

Bubba Beau, formal name - Beauregard Bocephus (although we were never able to find a registry that would accept him under that or any other name), is survived by Sister Sadie, his littermate and constant companion as well as those of his family handicapped by having only two feet.

Beau suffered from the stigma of being a ‘Replacement’ puppy. His predecessor was a little dog (although too tall for his alleged breed), and when he just plum wore out in June of 1996 the whole Olympic furor couldn’t replace him. So a scout was dispatched to check out a nearby litter with two clear instructions: It would take two big dogs to replace Mikey, and both had to be the same sex. She listened as well as usual and came home with a mixed pair of tiny puppies. They were so small they couldn’t negotiate steps and so had to be carried out to the yard every time they took a drink or had something to eat. Fortunately they could both be transported in one hand in an act we came to call puppy juggling. That came to an end well before Beau hit his peak weight of just over 100 lbs.

They came to us about the same time as the Atlanta Olympics and their birthday was only one day away from mine. I find it much easier to celebrate theirs than mine at this stage of life.

Since he was only a replacement puppy and not a terribly smart one in my opinion (although he could be sly and manipulative) I was determined not to love him. He wasn’t even a real Labrador Retriever, although he looked like one if he kept his mouth shut. (Don’t lots of us reveal things we’d rather keep hidden when we open our mouths?) But 10 years of faithful companionship have a way of worming deep into your heart. I said he was really Marjorie’s puppy, even after she moved out on her own, got married, then moved to Singapore and later Australia. After all when they played and danced she had been known as the third puppy. And Beau always reacted to my announcements that the third puppy was coming to see him, even when the visits were years apart. But when she and Mark adopted their own Laika (kind of an Australian version of Sadie) I had to acknowledge that I was stuck with Bubba Beau. I tried to say he was a sissy and just Linda’s dog, but when he ‘Assumed the position’ (another unique training command that he obeyed usually without command) by my recliner and demanded to be patted or some other affirmative kind of bonding, it was obvious. Would a guy let a dog he didn’t love groom his ears?

Beau was a Retriever and he was genetically programmed to prove it. Sometimes he did that by lugging around some soft toy. Linda continually humiliated him and reinforced the sissy image by buying him pink ‘babies’ to play with. But sometimes a guy just has to prove he’s a guy and go out and validate his place on the table of organization. At those times Beau usually found a possum that was, most often, playing possum. Finding those in the house was a thrill for a great big fellow and terrorized the women who were lucky enough to share the experience. Linda and Becky both became expert on the inverted laundry basket method of possum removal.

We knew that Beau was a (mostly) lab dog, but like I said he wasn’t too smart. He kept getting confused and thought he was a lap dog. When he was half of a puppy juggling act that was certainly an endearing trait, and as a 30 lb. puppy it was still pretty cute. Somewhere around the 75 lb. mark it became dangerous and when he was over 100 lbs it could be damned intimidating. By the way, there’s no thrill like having a 100+ lb. puppy step on your bare foot in his rush to be the first out the door.

Beau had another life long trait. He was a runner! If there was a fence he could find its flaw. If there was electric or electronic reinforcement he knew the second the power was off or the battery ran down. And he encouraged his co-conspirator to follow his example. In the early years there was some doubt about who was lead and who was wing, but not so in recent years. If Beau was having an out of yard experience by himself he was usually docile and responsive to calls, content to show you that all the money you’d spent on fencing and gadgets wasn’t what ran his life. But if his four footed pack was completed then he was off and adventuring. At the end of the adventure we could expect a call.

“Your dogs are in my pool” was the most startling, and for several reasons. They were about half a mile from home and had had to cross a busy road to get there.

But the call always came. Since we moved to Cumming the adventures had picked up again. A new neighborhood had to be explored and again we knew they weren’t respecting the boundaries we’d have drawn. But the call always came.

Tuesday evening we got a call while we were 50 miles away from home that they were on another adventure but hanging around close to home. When we got home several hours later they were nowhere to be found. The next morning I got the call I feared – “Hey, I found your dog.” Singular, not plural. And my heart fell. These were a pair. They’d never been found apart. We looked Wednesday and Thursday morning, putting out ‘Lost Dog’ signs and all. But Thursday we had to leave on a long scheduled trip to Boston, where we had once lived with Mikey many years ago. So we left the search and answering the calls in the hands of our oldest, dearest friends and The Dogs’ Nanny. Carole diligently searched Animal Control with no results and initially was told that no dog of that description had been found on the roads by DOT. But while checking in to our Boston hotel we got the call. Beau had had his last adventure and it had ended near the intersection of Kelly Mill Road (busy - with a high speed limit) and Pittman Road. He was about a block from home and although there was some confusion in my mind about whether he was coming or going, it’s now clear that the adventure had run down and he was on the way home. I’m told he was found on Thursday near one of our “Lost Dog” signs. That doesn’t fit my belief that Sadie wouldn’t have been found Wednesday without him had there been any choice, but it must have been her arthritis that brought her adventure to a premature conclusion on the wrong side of that busy road and within sight of the place where her bubba’s last adventure ended about 30 hours later.

So again, life goes on. I won’t miss the big dumb, hairy so and so. And my keyboard’s not going to rust from my tears falling freely. Revising and adding to this days later, as more that just can’t be left out occurs to me, reinforces my original conclusion that he was a big dumb hairy beast and I’m going to be a long time getting over him.

And anybody that doesn’t think Lewis Grizzard is as iconic a southern writer as William Faulkner can kiss my grits.


Beau was a lovely dog. He was sweet, and had a very silly, easy-going personality, and, in spite of what my father wrote, Beau was a very smart dog, probably the smartest I've known, though he was equally lazy and not worried about impressing anyone.

I spent most of yesterday crying, and imagine today won't be much different. I'm so glad I got to see him last May when I was home.

I'll miss his facination with "the magic floor", dirty laundry, and anything edible (or not so much). I'll miss having him follow me from room to room when I visit my parents. And I'll miss his morning salutations of "roo, roo, roo".

He was loved. He will be very missed. And I'm sure I'll stop crying eventually.