Meet My Pets (Again) # 2: Ringo

This is Ringo.  He's a beagle we adopted in 2004 who's going to turn sixteen next month.  I first wrote about him & introduced you to him here.

His best friend George died in 2012, at the end of year that I wrote the previous piece.  Unlike George, Ringo has stayed pretty healthy in his old age.  When George was twelve or so, we would push him in a baby-carriage-like dog walker, & we (when I say we I mean the wife & I) expected Ringo to be just as helpless as a very old man.  This hasn't happened - Ringo goes on walks with us daily & although he is a little slow - except at the parts of the walk where everyone gets a treat - he makes the three or so miles we walk every day with very little complaint.  We hope the exercise keeps him alive.

& oh does he love to eat.  My god.  He once almost killed us because of his love for food.  When we were away, he leaped onto a stove in which cooked & mashed sweet potatoes were sitting & ate them all.  In addition to getting sweet potato mush everywhere, he accidentally turned on one of the gas elements.  If we had been away for too long, he would've gassed everyone in the house.

He's not nearly as spry anymore.  He's a little deaf, & though he's been blind in one eye since we got him, he is probably not very well-sighted in the other.  But his nose still works, as does his stomach.  & he's very, very close to his mother.  He's stingy with the kisses but, as in the picture above, he's always near her.  & if I come home without her, he stands at the door & barks his complaint.

Such a precious soul.