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You know how it goes: if the story's about a dog, the dog dies at the end. It doesn't really matter how--maybe Old Dan and Little Ann tree a mountain lion, maybe Old Yeller fights a rabid wolf, maybe death just steals the dog away quietly, like a thief in the night. Or maybe it's a car, or a cancer. But those are dog stories, children's books that win Newbery medals, and this is a dog, not a story, and even though anyone with any sense could predict how his story ends, it's still enough to make me cry.

I'm tempted to try to write something that would convince you, whoever you are, that Moose was wiser than other dogs, kinder, tougher, better. Not just a good dog, but one of the best, a member of some rare pantheon. I'm inclined to believe he was. But no story would capture the whole of it, of him, and even if he was ordinary in every way, completely unbeguiling, it wouldn't matter. Moose was a member of the family for thirteen years--a span of time that seems, now, at once short and long. More importantly: Moose was Moose, and we loved him.

What else is there to say? Oh, Moosel, Mooseling, Mighty Moose, Mister Moose (your first name, the one you weren't given so much as you claimed). I'll miss you; the way you wiggled your body like it made up for the lack of a wagging tail, the steady 1-2 thump of a dropped tennis ball that was your calling card, the gaze I could only describe as soulful, your boot-black nose, the delicate way you ate berries from the bush, even your frustrating tendency to stand in front of cars pulling into the driveway. Every time I came back home you greeted me like it was the best part of your day, your week, your life, and that made it one of the best parts of mine.

Good bye, old friend, and thank you for all of it.