"You think dogs will not be in heaven? I tell you, they will be there long before any of us."
---Robert Louis Stevenson
When the old fellow waltzed into our lives in the fall of 2020, we had little understanding of his ultimate impact. It was four years ago this month when our doctor daughter, who was diligently working on the floor and in the ICU of the hospital where patients were succumbing, that Smokey appeared on the scene. Betsy received a call from Colleen Mooney of the NOLA Schnauzer Rescue - with whom she had been on the waiting list for some time - that they had a dog who had been recently rescued. Would she and her husband Erik, a general surgery resident, be interested?
The next thing I knew, my better half and I received a call - "Mama, Daddy, come over and meet Smokey. Erik and I are fostering him for the weekend." Translation: they are keeping him forever. Dutiful parents, we rushed right over, to make the schnauzer's introduction. Right away we realized he wasn't a young pup. On up in years, Smokey had been through a host of homes, which in my estimation could not have been very favorable. Having endured hardship, he showed his age in his countenance. And his gait was less of a waltz, more of a hobble. Arthritis had taken hold. Adding to Smokey's misery, his skin reflected dermatological distress. Skeptical and weak, he wandered around Betsy and Erik's home, surely wondering - where am I and who are these folks?
Rodney and I were wondering something different - would he make it? When we departed Marengo that Sunday afternoon in September, Rodney declared to me, "That dog won't live through the weekend." Smokey was that feeble. But with gumption, he proved us wrong. And Smokey was as smitten with Betsy and Erik as they were with him. Besotted, they forthwith adopted him.
Let it be said that the old miniature schnauzer could not have found a better home. Erik and Betsy sagely used their medical training to revive Smokey. Certainly, the veterinarians who had much expertise played a significant role, but the decrepit dog would never have made it without the two doctors with whom he came to live. Accordingly, after several rounds of treatment and maintenance medication, Smokey began his comeback. It started with sparkle in his eyes and pitter patter on the pine floors. Before long, he was thriving. Smokey took up residence at the window, in the front room of Betsy and Erik's turn-of-the-century home, where he kept watch, standing guard with a ferocious bark. For an unobstructed view, he demanded that the shutters remain open. And it was there that he waited - not so patiently - for his walks.
No one in the neighborhood knew better how to extend a walk than Smokey. He was the poster boy for the old expression - stop and smell the flowers. And he made a legion of friends along the way. Everyone on the block knew the old Schnauzer, Smokey. This, I learned in 2021 when our daughter moved to Boston for her fellowship in pulmonary/critical care. With our son-in-law staying another year in New Orleans to complete his five-year residency in general surgery, Smokey remained with him . And I became the back-up dog walker when Erik got called to surgery. Smokey taught me the meaning of a long walk. There was no point attempting to rush him. He just wouldn't have it. The only way I got Smokey back home was bribery, a trick I learned from my own spaniel.
Watson and Smokey became fast friends. Admittedly, Watson was spry and perhaps a bit of an annoyance. But on Smokey's sojourns in Mandeville and at our Washington Parish farm, he tolerated Watson and his antics. They napped, walked, and dined together. And they roamed the farm together, too. My, oh my, how Smokey loved the farm. Out here, in wide open pasture, he pranced like a horse. Because he felt so comfortable, all of us were convinced that in Smokey's early days he had lived in the country. Of course, we had no proof; it was just a gut feeling.
But Smokey also adapted well to city life, moving in 2021 to Boston to live with Betsy - her sweet companion - while Erik completed a two-year fellowship in cardiothoracic surgery in New York City. The old Schnauzer saw, and endured, what we presume was his first snow, surviving drifts thereafter. Yet it wasn't just the weather that changed for Smokey.
Easygoing, he adjusted to new modes of transportation. On weekends, he journeyed by train between Boston and New York where Betsy and Erik, respectively, lived. And receiving his own wings, a pin from the flight attendant, he regularly flew Delta, from Boston to New Orleans and San Diego. Smokey had just been home, to New Orleans, in early May of this year. He had visited us in Mandeville and had accompanied us to Franklinton to the farm, one of his favorite places in the world, where he walked the field less than two weeks before his passing.
In his final resting place, Smokey has since returned there, permanently. It was Truman Capote who said something to the effect of, "All Southerners go home sooner or later, even if in a box." Smokey is buried on the land he so loved, in the company of our other late furry friends. He taught us plenty, particularly perseverance, in four short years. Smokey enriched our lives, just as his owners Erik and Betsy did his. Rest in peace, sweet buddy. We miss you.
