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| Those of us who don't habla francais just call her Bowe. |
For those of you who never knew Bowe back in her prime, you missed out. She was the master at deception and manipulation (she once convinced my parent's dog Bailey to EAT OUR COUCH --- seriously) and had figured out a way to open locked doors in order to get what she wanted. There was no candy bar she couldn't reach, no turkey dinner she couldn't steal. For a dog that was only 2 feet tall she was able to reach onto the kitchen counter, extend an anteater-like tongue and snag any morsel of food left unattended for more than 3 seconds.
She was, in short, a genius.
Those of us who knew Bowe can tell you about the brown and black Basset hound with a myriad of stories, almost all of them about her eating something that she really shouldn't stick in her mouth (an entire box of Nestle Crunch bars, an entire carton of Crayola Crayons, an entire garbage can full of coffee grounds, moldy bread and plastic wrappers... the list goes on)
When I think of Bowe --- really quintessential Beauregard --- I think of one specific story. It's summertime and my grandparents have come over. We're in our backyard and my grandmother (foolishly) sets down her purse on the deck while she takes a seat at our picnic table. The afternoon soldiers on and we talk amongst ourselves. Our other dog, Bailey, is chewing on a tennis ball in the yard and none of us are paying any attention to the stocky brown and black shadow that slowly creeps toward the purse.
I should note two things at this point: Firstly, my grandmother loves spearmint gum, and always keeps a pack of the green goodness in her purse. The second (and more important part of the story) is that the purse had a zipper and was zipped shut.
Bowe grabs the purse and begins to slllllooooowwwwwllllyyyyy pull it away from underneath my grandmother's seat. She drags it a few feet, then getting her teeth around the small clasp she UNZIPS THE PURSE and claims her prize.
Of course, none of us realize this until it was too late, when we hear the all to familiar OM NOM NOM sound coming from behind my grandmother and find our dog laying on the ground with a purse for a head, happily gnawing on several sticks of gum at once. The other non-food items in my grandmother's purse are strewn around her, and she continues to chew even as my father chases her around the deck and out onto the backyard.
When we finally do catch her and my dad retrieves the wad of several (still wrapped) pieces of gum from her mouth, she is banished back inside the house, where she promptly opens the cabinet under the sink (where the garbage is kept) and spreads coffee grounds all over the kitchen floor.
The next weekend, it all happens again. Exactly the same.
There are a bunch more stories I could tell you (like how she learned to eat whole peanuts and spit out the shells, how she sang at the top of her lungs when my brother would play his trumpet, or how she once ran away from home only to come right back because it was snowing and she hated to get cold) but this one has always been my favorite. It's just so Bowe.
She's a dog that puts the great "bad dogs" of the world to shame, but like so many other "bad" dogs she brought so much joy and happiness to our home growing up, and I can't imagine a childhood that doesn't include her.
If you were ever lucky enough to meet Bowe, whether it was in her rambunctious teen years, or later when she was the grumpy old curmudgeon, there is no denying that this was a dog that truly, without a doubt, had a soul.
She was a grump, but never had a mean bone in her body. She truly loved everyone and was always at her happiest sleeping on a big soft blanket with someone and chewing on her own ears like a baby sucking a thumb.
Beauregard. We all love you.
---Geoff
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