Oliver Winston the Frenchie

Oliver Winston the Frenchie has died.

He was an 11 year old black and white French bulldog.

He was self-possessed, handsome and intelligent.

I was fond of him despite the fact that never having grown up with dogs (except for one foray when I was a teenager, more below), I was not a dog person.

My experience with canines consisted of a few days with a German Shepherd puppy born to one of my father’s militarily named (Major, Sargeant) dogs he brought to our Teaneck, NJ home from his Newark warehouse. My only interaction with those dogs had been watching my uncle speak to them in Yiddish as he doled out their food. They were locked up during the day but when night fell, they were released to roam the fenced yard and never, in forty-something years, was the warehouse ever robbed. One day, my father brought home a puppy. He never shared his reasoning with us. Our prior interactions with animals had not been a good one. We had so overfed an English canary, incongruously named Lucky, that one morning I woke up to find him (or her) keeled over on the floor of the cage. I don’t recall what we named the new puppy but we soon realized that as we all busy and my mother was not going to go near it, it wasn’t going to work out and he would have to go back to Newark.

Then, there was my adult experience with a dog.

My son convinced me to buy a cocker spaniel for his sisters.

I tried, I really tried.

I named her Jackie after Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. They both had wavy black hair.

But the same problem arose. My children were engaged in school, track, soccer and I worked.

Bored, Jackie started to eat the wallpaper.

After a year of spending more on her haircuts than my own, housing her in the Doggie Hilton when we went out of town, I brought her to a No-Kill facility. She trotted away and never looked back.

So, when my now grown daughter and husband told me they had gotten a dog, I hesitated but seeing their enthusiasm, keep my counsel.

One morning I woke up in their guest room and was chagrined to find that he had chewed up my favorite black patent leather shoes.

He’s only a puppy, I reasoned, through grit teeth.

I kept my footwear in my suitcase whenever I would visit after that and eventually he lost interest in items that were not food.

The only time Oliver Winston barked was when someone approached the front door. He was easy going, traveled well by plane. Whenever that was not feasible, he went to the dog sitters without fuss.

His large calm brown eyes seemed to take everything in. As they say, “he went with the flow”.

Sadly, for the last year he suffered from congestive heart failure and despite visits to the vet, procedures, began to fail.

On his last night, he sighed and then, suddenly, faded away.

I found myself moved, both for my daughter’s family and myself. For the first time, I understood the deep bond between that can exist between animals and humans.They share our homes and memories and in return we expand our hearts to include them in our lives.

Thank you, Oliver Winston for all you were and all you brought to our family.