A Dog Named Brittany - 1995-2009

Awareness of ultimate and inevitable loss is what gives us the urgency to accomplish the creation and preservation of our legacy. Without the awareness that people and times comes to an end, we might be tempted to put off for too long the which we know we must do.

So I was reminded yesterday with the death of our much loved English Springer Spaniel named Brittany. She was a sweet and loving dog whose end we had anticipated over the last two years of canine diabetes and arthritis. And yet, when the end finally came, it still seemed sudden. Isn't that how it always goes? Even with advance warning we so often put off what we know we should and must do.

I took comfort in Lord Byron's poem to his dog, Boatswain.

On a monument placed in the garden of Newstead.
A prose inscription precedes the verses:—

"Near this spot
Are deposited the Remains of one
Who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferocity,
And all the Virtues of Man without his Vices.
This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
If inscribed over human ashes,
Is but a just tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a Dog,
Who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803,
And died at Newstead Abbey, Nov. 18, 1808."

When some proud son of man returns to earth,
Unknown to glory, but upheld by birth,
The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe
And storied urns record who rest below:
When all is done, upon the tomb is seen,
Not what he was, but what he should have been:
But the poor dog, in life the firmest friend,
The first to welcome, foremost to defend,
Whose honest heart is still his master's own,
Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,
Unhonour'd falls, unnoticed all his worth-
Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth:
While Man, vain insect! hopes to be forgiven,
And claims himself a sole exclusive Heaven.
Oh Man! thou feeble tenant of an hour,
Debased by slavery, or corrupt by power,
Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust,
Degraded mass of animated dust!
Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat,
Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit!
By nature vile, ennobled but by name,
Each kindred brute might bid thee blush for shame.
Ye! who perchance behold this simple urn,
Pass on- it honours none you wish to mourn:
To mark a Friend's remains these stones arise;
I never knew but one,- and here he lies.

Newstead Abbey, October 30, 1808.