Here at EO we broke a tradition this past week. We went more than a week without a new blog post.
There is a reason. I was a little distracted, and sad. My beloved dog Daphne died.
I have written an obituary for her and am sharing it below. As the editor, it is my prerogative to do so. After all, she is in part one of the reasons this blog site exists and feel an obituary is appropriate. She came into my life just as I started blogging and for many, many years I’ve used experiences with her to highlight human resources and the human condition.
We’re coming into an age where more and more people, for whatever reason, are growing old without human children. To fill that void, we now have a new social phenomenon of pets as children. She was my first dog where I was the parent, and we even gave her a human name.
Here at EO, you can find some of the posts about her at:
https://eolist.com/inner-puppy/
https://eolist.com/how-well-do-you-treat-older-workers/
https://eolist.com/how-daphne-kept-me-in-toronto/
https://eolist.com/for-the-dogs/
I think I really wanted to be her.
Kylador’s Duckdreamer Daphne, aka Daffy, was a born of good genes in 2001 to champion show dogs Dawn and Ace. She was a Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever who lived their reputation as a breed. Regal and independent, she had an energy and zest for life that was an inspiration to those around her.
Daffy loved water of all kinds—in a lake, in a hot tub, on the shower floor, or in a puddle. Her favourite place was swimming at her grandparent’s house on Lake Redstone in Wisconsin.
She especially loved cold weather walks—the snowier the better. Thanks to her, the Titgemeyer family came to truly enjoy exploring the Ontario countryside, looking for places to wear her out. In her elderly years, the distance she could walk became shorter but she always pushed to be first in the car and chortled all the way to the trail.
She had a significant love of cheese and ice cream and would go to great lengths to get them.
She had fabulous silky fur. In 2008, she was the July dog in a popular retriever calendar.
She was not without strange quirks. She lost her mind whenever a doorbell rang, could not push open doors and despite many attempts never learned how to walk on a leash.
Daffy was preceded by Silly and Elvira and her good pal George, all cats. She leaves behind her grieving pet parents who loved her immensely, and a younger dog brother Mars, a Golden Retriever, whom she always felt was a complete idiot.