2015 Tribute to Madeline T. Dog_interior-m-plus cover_spreads

A TRIBUTE TO

MADELINET. DOG

Stories and comments printed largely from a blog created by Chris Beuoy in November 2009. 2nd ed.

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CHRIS BEUOY stories 4 MADELINE: THE EARLY YEARS

6 CLASSIC FOOD TALES

7 MADDIE’S MIND: TRAINING AND MEMORY

8 TWO MOST REMARKABLE STORIES

9 MADDIE AND MY PARENTS

10 MADDIE AND THE MAIL

11 MADDIE’S TP PHASE

12 MADDIE AND LENA

14 MADDIE AND EXERCISE

15 MADDIE AND THE VET

16 MADELINE THROUGH THE YEARS

18 MADELINE T. DOG EAT-A-THON

23 MADDIE’S EXTENDED FAMILY

lyrics 24 “PADDLIN’ MADELIN’ HOME”

contributors JACK HANDY Chris’s brother-in-law JESSICA HANDY Chris’s niece NATASHA HANDY Chris’s great niece CAROL SAMPSON Chris’s sister DEBORAH-EVE LOMBARD Chris’s friend BOB MARTIN Chris’s friend NANCY LOCH Chris’s friend

KIM ZOPH cover “One Hamburger”

KIM ZOPH illustrations kimzoph.com

NANCY LOCH design nancy-loch-design.squarespace.com

A TRIBUTE TO

MADELINET. DOG

A.K.A. MADDIE, THE WORLD’S GREATEST DOG AN INSPIRATION AND MARVEL TO ALL WHO KNEW HER

1993–2009

Here’s to the amazing antics and outrageous feats of Madeline T. Dog.

I am grateful to have been connected to a life

of such passionate, single-minded devotion.

— CHR IS BEUOY

2009

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I AM GRATEFUL to be that sister Carol and to have been around Maddie in her early years. Bowser (1980-1997) was the pet love of my life. I feel sure that Bowser and Maddie were cousins to some genealogical degree.

—Carol I’M THINKING of that apartment and lying on the newly reupholstered sofa while Maddie barked at every minute sound within a mile. And, of course when some-one came near the door, she went berserk. I remember she could hear your car as you turned into the apartment complex. And, I still remember Maddie barking at the neighbors every time they opened their door!—Deborah-Eve

HEY! I’M SURE YOU’RE MISTAKEN, Deborah. She was such a good dog. You must be thinking of Max.—ChrisWELL, I AGREE THAT MADDIE WAS AN ANGEL compared to Max, but any dog would compare that way to Max!—Deborah-Eve

I TALKED with trainers and vets and friends with dogs. What to

do about this angry little puppy? She was especially food-aggressive. One of the trainers advised me to take her food dish away randomly in the middle of a meal just to show her who’s boss. I was also supposed to correct her aggressive behavior by pinning her down on her back. The person explained that she’d immedi-ately recognize me as the pack leader and go limp. Instead, she would keep fighting for minutes.

After several days of this, I recall talking on the phone with my sister and announcing that I was ready to give up on this dog and take her back the next day if the situation didn’t improve. Miraculously, things turned around almost immediately thereafter.

I’m not saying she became com-pliant. We went through obedience training, and she quickly mastered the required behaviors; but, she never quite made the transition from doing them for the treat reward to doing them to please me.

WE ACHIEVED a harmonious household less because she

followed the house rules than because I arranged to keep food temptations out of reach. It became ingrained in me to push chairs into the table so she couldn’t get access (though that wasn’t always enough to stop her) and to never leave the kitchen when food was on the table. All my waste baskets lived at counter height.

I never brought food out of the kitchen or dining area, and I gener-ally kept a very neat floor.

It took a long time for me to set-tle on a name for this dog, but even-tually I chose Madeline so I could call her Maddie because she seemed to have a lot of anger issues. I fol-lowed the spelling of the character from children’s literature for her first name. Her last name, of course, is Dog, the only appropriate last name. Her middle name is The. ♦

AFTER TEN YEARS of living in the Chicago area, I had started

a new job in Champaign, Illinois, at the beginning of April, bought my first car a week later, moved into an apartment shortly thereafter, and the next week adopted a dog.

I had visited the Champaign Co. Humane Society several times and not found the right dog there, so I went to the pound in nearby Deca-tur, where my parents and sister were living. The pound was a very depressing place.

The only other time I had been there was to select a dog for my sister Carol in 1980. On both visits, I was attracted to black dogs with a classic beagle face. In fact, Maddie grew to very much resemble BOWSER, my sister’s dog, except that Bowser was a 30-pound dog, and Maddie was a 20-pound dog who aspired to be a 200-pound dog.

In the dog pound, Maddie was in a small concrete run with a mother and a bunch of puppies, but Maddie was not of that litter. She was eight weeks old, and she already had that imperious stare. She didn’t whine or wag her tail and show how eager she was to be chosen. She just expected that I would choose her. And so I did.

She wore a tiny yellow cloth col-lar and the people at the pound told me she had been relinquished by her first owners. Although the first vet we visited pegged her at just eight weeks, we later hypothesized that perhaps her lifelong food insecurities

stemmed from being taken too soon from her mother.

Our first weeks together were very rocky. Before I had even selected a name for her, I almost took her back to the pound because she was aggressive. She would tear around the house and attack me, and her little eyes would roll back into her head. She’d steal a Kleenex or other object she shouldn’t have, drag it under the bed or couch, and snarl and snap at any hands that reached for her. At five or six pounds she wasn’t terribly dangerous, but I knew she’d get bigger and become a seri-ous problem.

MADELINE: THE EARLY YEARS

“I met Madeline in the Decatur pound in May 1993.”


MADDIE’S MIND: TRAINING AND MEMORY

“You always had to be on your toes with Maddie.”

F OR A TIME, (what was I think-ing?), Maddie got a small treat

reward when she came in from using the backyard facilities. It didn’t take long before she was asking to be let out and no sooner out the door than asking to be let back in for the treat. She didn’t get a treat for that. So, she learned to go out the door, count to 12 or whatever, then ask to be let back in. You always had to be on your toes with Maddie.

After she had me trained that when she went to the back door, I would stand up (because I’m think-ing I need to let her into the yard to do her business), she built on this behavior. She’d go to the back door, I’d stand up, then she’d dance and prance over to the counter where the treat jar was kept. She’d look from me to the treat jar and from the treat jar to me, hoping I would be bright enough to catch her drift.

Maddie’s communication skills were excellent.

MADDIE’S EYES were dark and intense with longing for whatever she wanted at the time. Fortunately, she was very good at indicating what she wanted by directing her whole body in that direction—sometimes up in the air—while keeping an eye on you.

She would take tiny hops while turning her body back and forth from you to the kitchen or dog dish or treat jar and then back to you. Her attempts were amazing, endearing, and hard to resist!

—Nancy

Maddie had an amazing memory when it came to somewhere she had encountered something she wanted to eat. Weeks after I had pulled

her away from a dead squirrel or piece of dog poop on a walk, we’d happen onto that same stretch of sidewalk again and her pace would quicken as she recalled what was coming up. I, of course, had long since forgotten about what had been there. ♦

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ONE SUMMER DAY, I watched in disbelief as Maddie strolled

over to a cherry tomato plant in our backyard, plucked the only red one off, and ate it.

My friend Deb is still in awe over the time Maddie swooped in and snatched a carrot from her fingers, only inches from her mouth.

Ever vigilant though I was, I once foolishly left a brand-new 5 lb. bag of flour on the kitchen table and later came home to a layer of white dust on everything. Maddie didn’t actually eat a whole lot of the flour, as far as I could tell, but it sure did make a big mess.

Then there was the time I grilled out with my friend Nancy.

Since I had the grill going, I cooked a few different things, more than we were planning to eat that night. The pork chops were done first, so I took them off the grill and put them on the table while we sat outside and waited for the rest of the food to finish cooking.

I was puzzled that Maddie didn’t want to be outside with us. Then, after 20 or 30 seconds of having this feeling, I realized that she probably wanted to stay inside to be near the pork chops. Sure enough, when we went back in, there was Maddie on the table with no pork chops left a minute later.

In a similar vein, we left the kitchen without clearing the table a different time and returned shortly

to discover that the carcass of a rotis-serie chicken we’d had for dinner was completely missing. No bones. No skin. Nothing. Fortunately, no ill effects were noticed.

The same cannot be said for the time she found the birthday

present my sister had tucked onto a low shelf for our brother-in-law Jack. While we were away, Maddie tore into and ate more than half of a 2 lb. box of Fannie May Turtles. She was sick for hours, during which time she would not think of eating anything else. But as soon as she felt better, she was ready to beg for whatever was at hand. ♦

CLASSIC FOOD TALES

“The only things she wouldn’t eat were olives and celery. And even celery, well, she’d give it a go if it had been cooked with something else.”

I AM GOING TO MISS MADDIE DOG. Remember how I tested her food obsession by giving her a clean plate to lick? She attacked it so passionately that even after about three minutes she still hadn’t noticed that it was absolutely clean. —Deborah-Eve

THE MOST MEMORABLE Maddie food story I can think of involved Maddie, my grandma, a sturdy Tupperware container on a high kitchen counter, and some lemon bars, probably destined for a church potluck. I wish I could remember all the nuances, but I believe great feats were accomplished to get to those lemon bars—twice.

Maddie was a great dog. So determined and passionate, be that about pork chops, Turtles, or used Kleenex. And cuddly and protective. Chris was among the best dog owners I know—diligently keeping foodstuffs out of paw’s reach and with regular walks to the park. —Jessica

BECAUSE MADDIE WAS SO INTERESTED in food, it took extra T LC to draw her attention elsewhere. As a dog sitter, I tried to do that by bribing her with a treat at the start of every visit. Eventually, she liked the sight of me and would allow herself to relax on the sofa, be petted, and take a nap after every other desire had been satisfied. A little relief for hardworking Maddie Dog.

Chris looked the other way when I spoiled Maddie with treats, but I think she appreciated extra attention going Maddie’s way. I was working at home then, so getting out of the house to visit Chris and family was a treat for me. —Nancy


ALT H O U G H M A D D I E WA S housebroken fairly quickly in

my apartment, for some reason she felt entitled to poop inside at my parents’ house for the first year or so. Back in these early years, Maddie would also show remorse, or at least awareness, over doing something she wasn’t supposed to do. She’d skulk around behind furniture, hide under the bed, and not come out to greet you when you came home.

My parents’ dog at that time, GEORGE, could do no wrong. If something was amiss, Maddie was always presumed guilty. Most likely she was the culprit, but I’m pretty sure she took the rap for at least a few of his transgressions.

Maddie was forever finding her way into George’s dish or bag of food despite my parents’ efforts at vigilance. When I called to arrange a visit with Maddie, they’d say, “We’ll put the dog food up.” Maddie would make a beeline for George’s food the instant she got in their house. A time or two she got into the bag when no one was around. We would return to find her lying on her side, the skin so taut over her stomach you could feel the individual nuggets of food, apparently unchewed.

When Lena was a baby, my mom often came over when

minor illnesses kept Lena home from day care. Inevitably, Madeline would get the better of Mom at some point during the day. When I got home,

after a quick exchange about Lena, I would ask how the day went with Maddie.

“That scoot!” Mom would say with a wry smile, and confess that Madeline had managed to get her morning toast, part of her lunch, or something out of her purse. The story usually started with “I just stepped away for one moment…”

Eventually Mom got a little defensive about being outsmarted by the dog, or at least about being teased because of it. She stopped telling me about Maddie’s con-quests. “I’m not saying,” was her new answer to my query. Or, “All I’m saying is ‘one hamburger.’ ” ♦

MADDIE AND MY PARENTS

“I just stepped away for one moment…”

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the story of the winter binge: or, fool them once, shame on you,

fool them twice, shame on everyone

SO IT WAS A VERY cold January in the Midwest when my college

friend’s daughter was born. How cold was it? Cold enough that if you blew a soap bubble outside, it would freeze and crash to the ground, shattering.

Despite the weather, I decided to spend a week in Minnesota with Deborah and the new baby and leave Maddie in Decatur with my parents.

At the same time, my dad was preparing to visit his mother in a Quad Cities nursing home. So, my mother baked several kinds of treats for him to take along: lemon bars, cookies, and fudge. A portion of this assortment was packed into tins and absentmindedly left on the kitchen table. Of course, Maddie ate it all. And she got very sick.

But it was too cold to leave her outside, so my dad spent the day cleaning up after Maddie while my mom was at work.

That in itself isn’t much of a story. But, the very next day, when my dad was about to leave for Moline, the remainder of the treats, sitting safely on the kitchen counter, were packed into plastic tubs and put into my dad’s duffel bag and then left… on the kitchen table!

Despite vomiting most of the previous day, Maddie proceeded to eat her way through the plastic tubs and devour this second batch of treats. She spent the rest of that day vomiting, while my mom looked after her, since Dad had finally left, treatless, to visit his mother. ♦

TWO MOST REMARKABLE STORIES

“Most of the Maddie Dog repertoire involves heroic feats of stealing and/or consuming food or food-like substances. Here are two favorites in this vein.”

the amazing dexterous dog and the jar of cookie mix

THIS HAPPENED just two years ago, when Maddie was 14½.

During a fundraiser put on by a vet student club, I had purchased six or seven containers of cookie-mix-in-a-jar for Lena’s teachers. The ingre-dients, minus egg or oil or whatever, were assembled in mason jars. Never dreaming this would be attractive to

my senior dog, I left those jars, yes, on my kitchen table. In a plastic gro-cery bag. Then we went out for din-ner. Without feeding the dog first.

Maddie must have thought she was at death’s door, needing to take desperate measures to avoid starva-tion. Because, when we got home, we found the bag of jars on a chair.

None of the jars were broken, but one was under the table, and she had unscrewed it. I kid you not.

And, she had eaten the top layers of ingredients and made a huge mess. But, somehow, she had managed to get the lid off without the benefit of an opposable thumb.

I defy you to top that. ♦


SHE WENT THROUGH A PHASE a few years ago of eating toilet paper off the roll whenever we left the house. It took us a while to internalize

the countermeasure of always leaving the bathroom door closed when we left. Sometimes she’d leave a trail 10 or 15 feet long into the living room. Other times, she’d just take a bite out of the roll like it was an apple.

One time my husband Bill caught her in the act with a roll she’d sneaked out of the supply closet. You don’t take things out of Maddie’s mouth if you value your fingers, so Bill knew he couldn’t get it away from her unless she broke her grip. He carried her into the kitchen under his arm like he was pointing some sort of weird weapon, a furry personal hygiene bazooka.

Maddie kept a straight face, never unclenched her jaws as we tugged on the roll, tried to distract her with other treats, and eventually took several photos. ♦

MADDIE’S TP PHASE

“Maddie was always one to make her feelings known.”

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HOW DID MADDIE KNOW to hate the lowly letter carrier?

Her hatred took root in puppyhood, when we lived in Hessel Park apart-ments. My unit was across from four mailboxes in an interior entrance to the building, so the mail carrier never actually touched the wall adjoining our apartment. But I heard from neighbors that when the mail truck pulled up, Maddie started barking and did not stop until the truck pulled away.

Maddie’s barking grew even more frantic when the mail carrier came into the apartment building entry-way. She didn’t bark at random visi-tors or the many other vehicles that came through the complex, but she always knew the sound of the mail truck.

Even if we were out on a walk or away from our house, if she saw or heard a mail truck, she’d strain to get at it like it had just threatened to

take her food dish away. We used to sometimes wonder if she had once mail ordered a big shipment of food that never arrived. The sin against her by the Post Office must have been something of an unforgiveable nature along those lines.

Then when we moved to Daniel Street, our mail came through a slot in the front door, and her obsession rose to a new level. Now she could actually devour the mail as it came into the house.

When she heard the mail truck pull up (it always parked right in front of our house), she’d jump to the best vantage point (usually the chest in front of the window or the arm of the couch), straining to get a glimpse of the mail carrier. Then she’d run to the mail slot and wait for something to come through. Then, after a few seconds of waiting, back to the couch. Back to the door. Repeat until mail actually arrives.

Some letter carriers tossed a treat in for her, which while thoughtful always bothered me a little since they hadn’t checked with me to find out if I approved. Others toyed with her, opening the flap a little, playing tug of war with the envelopes.

She would be furious, growling and barking to the best of her ability with a stack of envelopes filling her jaws. It is sobering just how power-ful those jaws could be. She would put tooth marks through half-inch-thick magazines. Mail with those kinds of marks was referred to as “Maddie canceled” in our house.

Whenever we were away for a day or just absent during mail delivery time, Maddie’s first thought on get-ting inside would be to race to the front door to bark at any mail that had arrived. Of course, if I ever did receive something edible in the mail, that piece of mail would be obliter-ated by the time I got home. ♦

MADDIE AND THE MAIL

“I think of my dog as an original, so I always teased her about her clichéd obsession with mail carriers.”


ONE TIME Lena made a neck-lace with Froot Loops at an

afterschool program. As soon as Bill saw her, before they’d left the school, he warned her not to wear the neck-lace around the dog. Despite this she left it on, and within five minutes of her arrival I heard her cry out.

I turned from the stove to find her bent over clutching the necklace near her neck while Maddie hung off the other end, jaws clamped shut. It took both me and Bill to extricate

the two of them. Lena kept her cool until it was all over. Then she real-ized the danger she’d been in and collapsed into tears. Later she made a drawing (at right) about the episode.

For all that, I don’t think Maddie ever injured Lena during the vulner-able toddler years, when kids totter around with half-eaten graham crackers in their hands. I guess Lena just never did that. We had a pretty strict rule that she sat in the high chair to eat for this very reason.

Maddie also wanted to be in the high chair. I think it must have been around that period of Lena’s life that we bought a kiddie door gate to keep Maddie out of the kitchen during meal times. ♦

I SEEM TO HAVE a memory of Maddie attempting to hold onto Lena’s high chair and stretch her tongue in the eter-nal hope that she might reach a scrap she could smell but not see on the tray.

—Deborah-Eve

MADDIE AND LENA

“Maddie also wanted to be in the high chair.”


MADDIE AND THE VET

“...the once black and tan puppy.”

WHEN I FIRST got Maddie, I took her to a clinic on Neil

Street in Champaign, for no other reason than it was a convenient loca-tion. I liked the young vet immedi-ately, however, because she got down on the floor with Maddie and sang “Paddlin’ Madelin’ Home,” a song I hadn’t heard of before or since.

When Maddie got her first shots, she made a sound like a car alarm going off, which lasted what seemed like a full minute. It made my heart ache.

After I started working at the vet school, I was advised to leave the Neil Street clinic, which closed about that time anyway. So, I started seeing Dr. Duane Dust, mostly because my friend Connie had taken her dog Molly to his clinic. I had also relied on Connie’s judgment for plumbers and heating professionals.

In 1998, I enrolled Maddie in a clinical trial through the dermatol-ogy section at the vet school. It had something to do with a certain brand of dog food. I wrote a story about it featuring a photo of, and a quote from, Maddie. “I’m so proud to be eating for science,” she was said to have said.

Dr. Dust took great care of her. Over the years, Maddie had a

few infections secondary to an allergy I never had the patience to pinpoint, an eventual bilateral ear canal abla-tion subsequent to the ear issues, surgery to repair a torn ACL, multi-ple tooth cleanings, and of course the

usual complement of vaccinations. Nothing too major.

During the last several years of her life, she was on low-dose

Prednisone, daily Proin to treat incon-tinence, and at the very end, a daily antibiotic plus Enalapril for the kid-ney problems and stubbornly recur-ring UTIs.

After the last time she had her teeth cleaned, I was paying the bill at the counter and waiting for Maddie to be brought out. When they came around the corner with a white dog wearing a VCA bandanna around its neck, it took me a couple of beats to recognize this as my Madeline, the once black and tan puppy. ♦

MADDIE AND EXERCISE

“But after all, she’s mostly beagle.”

AT THE TIME THAT I adopted Maddie, I was a (very slow) jog-

ger. It would have been great if she had wanted to join me on my jogs, but she was too interested in sniffing everything along the way. For a time, I tried making her retrieve a tennis ball for exercise. But after all, she’s mostly beagle. She would bring the ball back only if she knew she’d get a treat.

Before I started working at the University of Illinois College of Vet-erinary Medicine, I participated in the annual “Road Race for Animals,” sponsored by Omega Tau Sigma. We always signed up as walkers.

At one of our first races, I had us positioned near the rear, intending to

amble through the course. But, when the walkers were signaled to start, Maddie looked around and saw everyone headed in one direction, and she decided she wanted to lope up ahead. I was wearing running shoes, so we trotted along, passing up most of the walkers.

Then, when we got near the top of the “hill” on St. Mary’s Road, Maddie decided she’d had enough. She threw herself down in the grass and no amount of coaxing could get her to move…for about five or six minutes. Meanwhile, all those walk-ers we’d passed were now passing us. Making comments, too.

Just as suddenly as she’d quit, she was up again, loping along. I couldn’t

hold her back. So we passed those same walkers once again.

Moments later, she took another “break” of lying motionless in the grass. It was an embarrassing outing, to say the least. ♦

WHEN MADDIE WAS UNDISTRACTED on walks, she set an upbeat pace with her rhythmic little legs and metronome tail. We could walk quite a while fol-lowing her along, until all of a sudden, she would plop down on the sidewalk. Was she tired or just exercising her independence? Whatever it was, Chris respected Maddie and carried her if she needed to. My favorite part about walking Maddie was following her cute little tush. —Nancy

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“I suppose you know you’re spoiling that dog.”

“Sold!”

“Well, they consider [her] a member of the family.”

MADELINE THROUGH THE YEARS

“...a member of the family.”


THE EAT-A-THON was super-delicious. Maddie would have been so happy there, in her prime or any time before the past few months. Thanks to Debo-rah-Eve, I had my first taste of fried Twinkies. They were my second-favor-ite food there, right after those incredi-ble cream puffs. —Carol

An extra special thanks to my husband Bill Saylor for all the care and attention he gave to Maddie since the first moment he came into our home and lives, for his calming influence on me during the last few weeks of Maddie’s life, and for his support and hard work in cleaning up all those leftovers after our party. —Chris

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MADELINE T. DOG

MEMORIAL EAT-A-THON

CELEBRATING A LIFE OF UNCOMMON DEDICATION TO THE PURSUIT OF FOOD (AND FOOD-LIKE PRODUCTS)

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2009 RED HERRING RESTAURANT, CHAMPAIGN, ILLINOIS

Thank you to all who attended the Madeline T. Dog Memorial Eat-a-thon at the Red Herring on November 17. It was a wonderful gathering of more than 40 pet lovers and friends, with fixings from Hickory River, World Harvest, and English Hedgerow. I’m happy that many people told me they used the evening as a time to recall their memories of their own special animal friends.

A special thanks to my colleague Debra, who brought a delicious tray of gourmet chocolate chip cookies; my sister and nieces who came from Decatur and Springfield (Carol brought four pounds of chocolate Turtles in homage to one of Maddie’s food escapades); and my friend Deborah-Eve, who ordered a delivery from Big Mouths (fried Twinkies and Mediterranean salad) all the way from Fort Collins. I was worried there wouldn’t be enough food, but there were loads of leftovers, even with sending folks home with doggie bags.


IN MEMORY OF BOWSER T. DOG

FEBRUARY 1, 1980 – AUGUST 19, 1997

I ALLUDED to my love for BOWSER in an

earlier comment, but I would like to expand on that in this venue for memorials to the pets that have been so impor-tant a part of our lives.

A book going around in Christian circles now is Heaven by Randy Alcorn. I got hold of a copy at church yesterday and quickly went to the question of whether animals go to heaven and got the answer I wanted: Yes! I look forward to seeing Bowser there. He was a great companion to me all of his years. There were plenty of days when the only reason I got out of bed was that he needed to go out.

Chris got him for me from the Decatur pound, the same one pictured on the first page of this book. It was at a time when I didn’t want to get out of bed, but I did so to play with that cute little puppy.

He was a beagle X, according to the vet. In those days the pound released puppies before they were even neutered, because I remember already missing him when he was at the vet overnight for his operation.

When he was about 6 months, I took Bowsie to obedience training. He did pretty well—in fact he got the 4th place trophy at the final trials. No, it wasn’t in a class of four dogs; there were proba-bly a good 15 to 20 puppies in the competition.

Unfortunately, I did not keep up practicing his commands. Bowser craved food, but only the way

the average dog craves food—which is quite a lot but nothing like Maddie.

If Bowser had a defining desire, it was for freedom, at least for the first ten or so years of his life.

Whenever an out-side door was opened, you had to be on the lookout, because he

always took that as an opportunity to escape. In the summer of 1996, Bowser had a stroke

and walked a little crooked the rest of his life. I think it was also that summer that he became dehydrated and we had to inject water into his skin several times a day. I remember that Kate Handy, who would have been 12 that summer, learned to do the procedure.

In August 1997, Bowser became really weak and sick, and I hated to leave him alone when I went to Springfield on August 18—the day my niece Jessica was scheduled for induced labor at Spring-field Memorial, and also the day my father was having heart surgery at St. John’s. Jessica’s induc-tion did not take and was rescheduled for the next day, so I returned home to Decatur.

During the early morning hours of August 19, I woke up while it was still dark and found that Bowser, lying beside me in my bed, was no longer breathing. Natasha Dominique Handy was born that day, so I always remember Bowser’s death date. He was a wonderful, loyal companion and the pet love of my life. ♦ —Carol Sampson

MADDIE’S EXTENDED FAMILY

Musings and Memoirs

ON NEW YEAR’S Eve, I think, of 1993 (let’s say), my parents

were out of town for someone’s party and my aunts Chris and Carol came to our house to baby sit and hold a memorial service for the numerous animals who had died that year. I was around 11 years old and I had every surface in my room covered with cages for various critters. MOLLY, our childhood dog, and CARLI, Chris’s dog, were the headliners of that memorial service, but there were a few dozen or so animals to be named before them.

Carol presided over the ceremony. “ALICE, the guppy,” she’d say. And I, the guppy’s owner would light the

tiny birthday cake candle stuck in a styrofoam packaging material. “KATYA, the Decatur pond fish…,” followed by candle lighting, etc.

By the time the small animals had been remembered, with candles getting progressively larger as the significance of species increased, it was Molly’s and Carli’s turn. Those were sad deaths as they were both young—Molly died of cancer at age 5 and Carli was still a puppy. Chris had written Carli’s memoirs and she read them while everyone teared up.

Meanwhile, the tiny birthday cake candles burned down to the styrofoam, which caught fire mid-memoir and had to be extinguished.

—Jessica

HEY EVERYBODY. I’m Nata-sha and my grandparents’ 17

year old dog, ROXANNE, just recently died. Well, I wouldn’t say “die” it was more like she had to be “put to sleep” because she had cancer. She had a huge tumor that gradually got big-ger day by day. Roxy and Maddie were close doggies to each other and they were the same age when they died. They were also both pretty small and very nice. Maddie loved food while Roxy loved licking every and anything…even poop! Maddie and Roxy were great dogs.

—Natasha

I WAS ALSO THINKING ABOU T Madeline’s and Roxy’s debut per-

formance in Tragedy at the Mahog-any Hotel House. By way of back-ground for non-Beuoys, my sister Kate and I wrote a bunch of plays in this series and our encouraging aunts Chris and Carol always co-starred and directed. It was a fun childhood pastime that we are, to a lesser extent, carrying on for Lena and my daughter Natasha.)

Maddie and Roxy played FiFi and FooFoo, prized exotic puppies who were stolen in the middle of the night at this luxury hotel. Maddie and Roxy were allowed into the usu-ally-off-limits living room for the occasion, and that was pretty excit-ing for two young dog lovers like Kate and me. There is a video of this somewhere that I should probably get converted to DVD.

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the focus on being thankful. This year I’ll especially think about all the Maddie years we’ve shared as friends.

—Deborah-Eve

CAROL, great story on Bowser. I remember him always put-

ting his paw or maybe his head on my lap for extra attention. He did love those walks.

DEBORAH, you were a great help with Carli when we first got her and Thanksgiving was so much better with you around.

JACK, Molly was sweet and always careful around young Max. He liked to lie near her and looked so tiny then. Molly was the first big dog that he interacted with and it’s always a plus when it goes well.

CHRIS, Maddie and Max got along so good. They both liked to be under the bed covers. Maddie always took the right side, Max the left. Max was especially fond of eating his food extra slow in front of her. I think Maddie was a near genius dog when it came to doing things her way. For example, walk where she wanted to go or she would just lie down.

SPECIAL NOTE: Deep thanks to Norma who started Chris and me on the path of dog ownership. Pets make us whole. BEANIE was my “own” first dog and also a beagle. Long, long ago but still remembered, along with the white lab rat, SAM.

—Bob

WHEN you think of Maddie, do you hear what I hear:

the sound of her nails clicking and scampering wildly across the hard-

wood and kitchen floors? It was impossible not to feel love, admira-tion, and respect for that dog.

—Nancy

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Madeline and Roxanne were both small, mostly black dogs who were, I believe, born and adopted in the same year. Roxy died two weeks before Maddie.

—Jessica

TH A N K Y O U, J E S S I C A A N D Natasha, for contributing your

stories. Yes, Maddie and her “cousin” Roxy had many similarities, like both making their acting debut in the aforementioned Tragedy. The memorial service of (let’s say) 1993 is a classic pet story. So glad you’ve included it here. See if you can get Jack to add his Alex memoir.

—Chris

I DON’T RECALL writing a mem-oir for ALEX. Sorry. I do recall that

we got Alex within an hour of put-ting Molly to sleep. There happened to be an APL adoption event at Fairhills Mall that night. Lynn didn’t go, but her instructions were that she didn’t like dogs with a brin-dle color, so don’t get one like that. Jessica, Kate, and I went into the adoption event and about the only puppy there was Alex. And, of course, he was brindle colored. The girls really wanted him, so we got him. Alex was a very loyal dog. He slept in a laundry basket in our bed-room. Whenever I stirred in the

morning, Alex would pop his head up to see if I was getting up and he could play. It got to the point where I would intentionally move around and I would see how many times he would continue to pop up in response. It was really cute the way he did that. Alex didn’t like anyone to touch his front legs. I’m pretty sure that was as a result of a trip to the vet where they had a difficult time drawing blood. He was a very great dog, IMO.

—Jack Handy

W AS IT MAX OR Maddie who came to visit me in Iowa

when I lived across from the Lucky Lady? I’m remembering an episode that involved a water gun.

—Deborah-Eve

THAT WAS MAX. As I recall, we were on our way to Lorene’s

wedding. Max actually bit Lorene when she came over to the car to say hi after the day-after brunch.

—Chris

I’M ALSO remembering Thanks-giving with Carli when she was

so little. I played with her while you were at work, and I remember she liked to listen to the radio.

It seems that the months at the end of the year and into the next year have been especially sad for you. You’ve lost a lot of loved ones in those months. I’m always grateful for you, but the days approaching Thanksgiving make me more mind-ful of how much I love you—with

Condolences from a longtime friend, Deborah-Eve Lombard

cartoon caption contestPADDLIN’ MADELIN’ HOME

Song and lyrics by Harry M. Woods, 1925

I love a girl named Madelin’ I know she loves me too

For ev’ry night the moon is bright She rides in my canoe

At midnight on the river I heard her father call

But she don’t care and I don’t care If we get back at all

♦The moon comes up at six o’clock

And I come up at eight She’s always waitin’ for my call

And meets me at the gate

I’ve petted in the parlor And hugged her in the hall

But when she’s out in my canoe I love her best of all:

♦ ’Cause when I’m paddlin’ Madelin’ home,

Gee! When I’m paddlin’ Madelin’ home, First I drift with the tide, then pull for the shore.

I hug her and kiss her and paddle some more,

Then I keep paddlin’ Madelin’ home, Until I find a spot where we’re alone.

Oh! She never says “no,” so I kiss her and go Paddlin’ Madelin’, sweet, sweet Madelin’,

Paddlin’ Madelin’ home.♦

’Cause when I’m paddlin’ Madelin’ home, Gee! When I’m paddlin’ Madelin’ home,

First I kiss her a while, and when I get through, I paddle for one mile and drift back for two,

Then I keep paddlin’ Madelin’ home, Until I find a spot where we’re alone.

Oh! If she’d only say, “Throw your paddles away” Paddlin’ Madelin’, sweet, sweet Madelin’,

Paddlin’ Madelin’ home.

24 a tribute to madeline t. dog

a tribute to madeline t. dog 27

cartoon caption contest





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