One year today - On April 25th, 2012, at just 7 years young, Bonus (CH LegaSea’s Icing on the Cake, JH) drew his last breath in my arms and I felt my heart stop and my own breath leave me…
I borrow these words that were written by a writer for the Portland Oregonian, Ben Hur Lampman; to honor another great dog, a dog some of you may or may not remember – King Buck. While at first glance King Buck and Bonus may appear to have nothing in common – King Buck being a National Field Champion – “…one of the great ones” and never during King Buck’s lifetime “… did he posture, pose or give the slightest indication of public awareness. Flooded timber with wild ducks and wild duck-shooting is when King Buck came typically to life.” Bonus on the other hand was indeed a ham; loving the spotlight and coming to life in the show ring, sure that all who came that day were there to see him and him alone; as one renowned handler once told me “That dog thinks he owns the ring!” However, when Bonus encountered his first duck, he displayed such wild abandonment and joy that his short lived career in hunt tests was as rewarding to me as his career as a show boy!
I believe that Ben Hur Lampman wrote these words to honor every great dog whose master will never forget them for he knows “the place where dogs such as Buck are really buried.” and so I borrow them to bring me comfort …
". . . For if the dog be well remembered, if sometimes he leaps through your dreams actual as in life, eyes kindling, laughing, begging, it matters not where that dog sleeps. On a hill where the wind is unrebuked and the trees are roaring or beside a stream he knew in puppyhood, or somewhere in the flatness of a pasture land where most exhilarating cattle graze. It is one to the dog, and all one to you, and nothing is gained and nothing lost – if memory lives. But there is one best place to bury a dog.
If you bury him in this spot, he will come to you when you call – come to you over the grim, dim frontiers of death, and down the well-remembered path and to your side again. And though you call a dozen living dogs to heel they shall not growl at him nor resent his coming, for he belongs there.
People may scoff at you, who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall, who bear no whimper, people who may never really have had a dog. Smile at them, for you shall know something that is hidden from them.
The one best place to bury a good dog is in the heart of his master."
In Loving Memory:
CH LegaSea’s Icing on the Cake JH (“Bonus”)
October 23, 2004 – April 25, 2012
Rest in peace sweet Bonus, come down the well remembered path to my side again and again.