The Chronicle of George Hilton Beagle

Feb. 22, 2010

Well, I just paid $41 at the pound to become the owner of a beagle. Toby or George? We’ll pick him up at the vet’s Thursday afternoon, after that little operation.

He was a stray, they said. He immediately stood up and licked my hand through the fence when I went to meet him, and I told him to hang on, that we would save him.

--

Feb. 25, 2010

Tomorrow, Larry and I pick up George, our new beagle, from the vet’s, as soon as I write them a $157 check. He’s named for our late friend historian George Hilton Jones and the dog in “Bringing Up Baby.” Maybe for Prof. George Falconer now, too, in the wonderful film “A Single Man” that Sally and I just saw. 

“One must always appreciate life’s little gifts.”

--

Nov. 12, 2010

I suspect George had a lonely, hard life at the beginning. Well, no more. 

He’s a plucky lad. He curls up on my lap routinely now when I’m at the computer, a warm little circle of sighing trust.

--

Nov. 25, 2011

I guess George is a seeing-eye dog now. He ate a pair of reading glasses.

--

Aug. 17, 2012

Tornado warnings started sounding throughout the area. My colleagues huddled downstairs in the hall as the Buzzard Building and campus alarms went off. I raced home under a weird, swirling sky to find George alone in a house that was completely dark at mid-afternoon, howling at the tornado siren that had started again. Boy, was he happy to see me. 

We curled up together on the sofa and I talked softly to him as we watched the weird weather lash at us.

--

June 23, 2013

Today, I’m going to take George for a ride to Mattoon to PetSmart for dog food. George loves car rides, and drags you right to the car as soon as you mention it.

I see George trotting jauntily ahead of me in harness, with his dish towel-sized ears bobbing, and think, “He’s just a little guy in a great big world.” 

That image symbolizes a kind of life-affirming bravery for me.

--

Jan. 10, 2014

This morning George stomped on my laptop in his eagerness to get a treat, locking up the program. I didn’t really yell at him, but he seemed to sense my displeasure and vanished to a bedroom to curl up by himself. 

Poor little fellow. He's remarkably thin-skinned for someone who barks so loudly.

--

June 20, 2014

I took George Hilton Beagle to Mattoon to buy dog food, and to the office to water Phil the Philodendron and his friends. George sized up the elevator, with its insidious sliding doors, as a trap.

The beagle is distressed to have the wet grass touching his paws. Call of the Wild, my ass.

--

July 5, 2014

The mist ghosts are waltzing on Blackford’s Pond this morning. George and I walked past them at dawn. They dance above a brown surface that shimmers with hints of green and blue.

When the beagle and I go walking, we see merely a suggestion of light in the east.  Nice to walk with the glow of the coming day growing in silence before you.

--

July 28, 2014

For the last week, George Hilton Beagle has been obsessing over and guarding his soft toy mustard pot, part of a set that my nephew Brian and his wife Alison got for him for Christmas. His devotion to these little toys is weird. He carries them around in his mouth for several days as if they were puppies, freaking out if anyone tries to touch them, and then “accidentally” splits them open. 

We named this little yellow fellow “Musty.”

--

June 19, 2015

So if I’m sitting in the middle of the sofa, George Hilton Beagle will now walk up to me and shove my laptop hard with his nose. That means I am to “raise the drawbridge” so he can stomp across me to the side of the sofa that is now suddenly more attractive to him.

--

Sept. 18, 2015

I made the mistake of saying the word “bark” to George again this morning, and he sprang up and ran to the window to look out. He always thinks I said “Bart,” his favorite visitor.

--

Nov. 10, 2015

George Hilton Beagle will not tolerate even the appearance of physical aggression in our household, not even in jest. He is like Gort.

Matt Mattingly interpreted for him, “I will reduce your sofa to a smoldering cinder. The choice is yours.”

--

Sept. 21, 2016

Yesterday, I took George for a stroll around the fairgrounds and he was fascinated by the horse trotting around the track, following it with his eyes. Perhaps the first horse he’d ever seen. I could tell he was thinking, “That's the biggest damned dog I've ever seen in my life.”

--

Oct. 28, 2016

George has gotten really used to having me around all the time since I got “Raunered” out of my university teaching position this year.

George Hilton Beagle is my perfect companion during the day. He listens attentively to whatever I have to say, and makes no reply.

--

Jan. 14, 2017

Everything is covered in a thin coat of immensely dangerous ice. I fell on the steps taking George out, but managed to do it gently.

--

Aug. 6, 2017

George Hilton Beagle and I took a Sunday drive out to Lincoln Log Cabin State Park, where we wandered about in the lightest little drizzle and looked at the sheep. 

“What in hell are those things?” George said.

--

Feb. 24, 2018

In a book by existentialist philosopher Albert Camus, I read, “These essays begin with a meditation on suicide: the question of living or not in a universe devoid of order or meaning.” 

Then the beagle straddled my lap, vigorously licked my face and waited to be petted. 

I’ve never seen a more eloquent refutation of Camus.

--

July 2, 2018

Every so often while I’m typing, George Hilton Beagle will stroll up to me and give me what I call “the Nose.” Peremptorily shoving aside my laptop with his muzzle, he’ll hop up on my lap in a move that means, “It’s time for my scritches, you!”

--

July 13, 2018

George and I drove to Mattoon to get him dog food and pill pockets. He looks happiest when we’re in the car moving, although he doesn’t like to stick his head out the window if we’re traveling 50 miles per hour or faster. Too much wind flapping his long ears. 

At stop lights or other delays, he whines a little. He wants to go.

--

Nov. 14, 2018

Waiting with George for an operation on his fatty growth today. He doesn’t understand why he hasn’t been able to eat or drink this morning, but he’s been pretty good about it, just watching me curiously.

--

Nov. 15, 2018

George is still seeping blood from time to time, and has a hard time lying down, so I have been sitting up with him, the poor little guy.

George barked twice in his sleep just now, loudly, something he rarely does. I suspect it’s a reaction to the trauma of his surgery experience.

All while the first real snow of the winter falls silently around the house.

--

Jan. 17, 2019

Every night, when Larry gives George Hilton Beagle the small rawhide treat we have so cleverly named the “boney bone,” George trots off to find me, drops it at my feet and growls softly. Then he barks.

This is his way of saying that this particular boney bone is HIS, and that I’d better not try to get it or there will be 

HELL.

TO.

PAY.

George seems to think that the treats we give him — so foolishly — are things we will immediately want back, once we regret the error of our ways.

Thus challenged, I naturally have to make a grab for it, but he snatches it up and dashes off to another room.

We run, we feint, we stop and stare at each other like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. 

“Drop it, bitch,” I tell him, and he drops the boney bone, tauntingly. 

At my slightest motion, he grabs it up again and dashes room to room to room.

“Tonight is the night I’m GETTING that boney bone!” I tell him, hot in pursuit. “Say goodbye to it!” 

I feel, strangely, a little like Wile E. Coyote.

Sometimes I hide behind a door, which worries him. A ridge of hair on his back rises like the spines of a stegosaurus, and he barks with mad, abandoned joy when I jump out from my hiding place. And we’re off again!

This kind of thing continues until I slow down and collapse on the sofa, muttering, “Okay, okay. Enough, enough.” 

Then George settles down happily to eat his boney bone, reassured that he is a streak of tri-colored lightning, much faster than any pokey old human.

George chews his treat with great satisfaction, knowing that I have once again been put in my place. And I rest gratefully until he finishes the boney bone, and it is time for us to go outside and pooty.

--

March 28, 2019

When I returned from shopping yesterday, I caught George staring at me, his eyes brimming with love. Then Paul told me that when I was in the driveway, George whined and moaned, missing me.

--

June 9, 2019

A clerk in Rural King said, “George, you’re perfect! You know that?” George Hilton Beagle seemed unsurprised.

It just occurred to me that I even love the word “beagle.” It has such a happy lilt built in.

--

Aug. 11, 2019

Paul had to pick up his mother at the St. Louis airport at 9 p.m., and didn’t get home until almost 1 a.m. George and I waited up for him.

George went to the door and windows and whined a little about 8 p.m. I think he was worried about why Paul hadn’t yet returned. I reassured him that Paul would be back, and he settled down to nap.

--

Jan. 10, 2020

Looks like it’s going to rain for 48 hours or so. Convenient for George, who likes to lick water off the deck steps. 

Deck water is like Perrier to him.

--

June 2, 2021

Now that George is getting older, I pick him up and carry him more. And when I do, I find myself resting my cheek against the warmth of his neck. 

He’s anxious to get where he’s going, but I want to keep him where he is.

--

June 30, 2021

George is sleeping deeply and peacefully on the floor right now, as he always does on spa days.

They didn’t give George his rabies shot because of his condition, but I authorized blood work on him. The vet thinks he has Cushing’s, an adrenal gland disorder.

Total cost today, $222, which is irrelevant because I’d do just about anything for my beagle.

--

July 1, 2021

Well, George has only six months to live. He doesn’t have Cushing’s, but some kind of liver disorder. We’ll treat it, but there’s a terminal point in sight. My beagle likely won’t see 2022.

--

July 28, 2021

Sometimes now when I have to leave the house for an errand, George whimpers with separation anxiety. He’s just old and he knows it and he’s afraid, just as I am sometimes. Two old dogs. It makes me feel even closer to the little guy, whom I now have to carry just about everywhere.

Carrying George outside to do his business, I hold him next to my head and whisper, “I’ve got you. I’ve got you.”

--

Dec. 22, 2021

However bad a shape he was in, I decided not to mourn George as long as he was still beside me.

And then, one day, he was not.