It is with an incredibly heavy heart that I announce the passing of our beloved German Shepard Tully today. My mother had wanted to give my father a great 60th birthday present, and Tully was it. Dad had trained a German Shepard in the army named Prince. And then when he’s gone back to civilian life, he found another, Beau, who became the first of the Oates family’s dogs followed by Whitney the Pits and Samantha “The Mantha Puppy.” They travelled to Pennsylvania Dutch Country and picked up this adorable little puppy that Dad named after his old Army buddy, Sandy Tulloch. When Tully came to us, he was smaller than our Lhasa Apso Moxie, but that didn’t last long. From day one, he terrorized our cat Cetti, but in recent months they seemed to have reached a détente of sorts. Cetti, having grown accustomed to being chased out of the living room, has spent most of his time in mom and dad’s bedroom, and then Tully just wasn’t up to the challenge of the chase. Sometimes, however, they seemed to give it the old college try just to keep up appearances. He aspired to be a lapdog, but the poor guy just didn’t realize how big he was. Standing on his back paws, he was taller than all of us (maybe not as tall as Shawn is now), and he weighed in at an alarming 150 lbs., but he never used his size for nefarious purposes…unless you were a rabbit…or a squirrel…or a bare foot that he just had to step on. Then he used his size to show everyone that he was indeed the head dog in charge. Unless there was a thunderstorm, then he turned into the biggest baby in the world, using his velociraptor like skills to open Shawn’s bedroom door and cower on the bed. We will miss his conversations. As his vet once said, he was a talker. And we discovered his amazing singing voice every time the fire whistle blew. His love of spraying water, made it almost impossible to use a sprinkler or the garden hose without risking bodily injury from him barreling over and eating the water. We will miss him dearly, but know that he is in the big backyard in the sky, laying like Ferdinand in the clover or crushing Mom’s day lilies, waiting to play catch or to herd the grandkids. Maybe he’ll even have the chance to catch that rabbit, but I still don’t think he’d know what to do with it if he did. Rest in peace puppy, we love you so much and will miss you.
Posted on: Sat, 27 Sep 2014 00:25:01 +0000
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