A couple of days ago I received an e-mail from my mom informing me that she had to put her dog Apollo, a white standard poodle, to sleep on Thursday. Since then she’s been sorting through old photographs, gathering a visual overview of Apollo’s time here and I thought I’d add a few memories to that compendium, as a small farewell.
Apollo was a special dog, and when I say special I mean that in every sense, every definition, that the word encompasses (except perhaps the mathematical one). It was because of his very unique specialness that he wound up at our house; born blind and with weakened back legs, aficionados of purebred poodle pups didn’t really want anything to do with him. And so it was that a very fluffy and cute white puppy, burdened with the weighty name of Apollo, joined our family.
When he was still small, small enough for me to carry, I liked to take him to Franklin Street (downtown Chapel Hill) and the University of North Carolina campus because that’s what people with dogs do. He was happy enough in the campus parks, but as soon as his feet touched concrete he froze… wouldn’t move a muscle. And so began the hallmark peculiarities that made Apollo a particularly lovable variation on a theme. I’m not fond of poodles or the pretension that surrounds their very existence, but Apollo was different with his endearing wobbliness and propensity to run into things, even though his breath was usually pretty stinky.
When Apollo was a teenager he made the very unfortunate mistake of getting in a horse’s way (my lovely and sometimes bitchy Neechee), where he promptly found his right front leg in a vivid green cast. My mom never had Apollo cut like a poodle, and at times his fur just grew and grew until he looked like a big piece of cotton with eyes. One of my favorite images of Apollo is of him asleep on the kitchen floor, a round puffball, with a green cast sticking out at a right angle; a poodle on a stick.
Though Apollo was blind, he could see shadows and managed to navigate surprisingly well. One of his favorite activities was to run around the outside of the house, over and over and over again. His path was laid out and he knew it well, so the laps were performed at top speed. Usually it was the sound of crunching gravel, a car on the driveway, that sent him racing off.
For better or worse, Apollo was always a source of amusement and entertainment. One summer my mom refinished the deck in back of the house. It looked beautiful, but the moment Apollo set foot on it, his legs began to slide out from under him, every which way. He’d just kind of slip and scoot his way around, his front legs barely making up for the extra sliding of the back legs. Sometimes even this wasn’t enough, and he’d do a faceplant onto the deck. Navigating stairs wasn’t very easy for him either, especially short flights of stairs, where he’d dangle his head over the first step and sway back and forth until taking a large poodle leap to the floor below. I never could tell if he was actually contemplating the jump or just waiting for enough kinetic energy to build up to push him over the threshold.
Apollo was a beautiful dog, show worthy if it weren’t for his deformities, and very smart as well. He was kind and gentle (mostly), with a huge, deep bark. Because he couldn’t see very well, whenever the doorbell rang or someone knocked, Apollo would start spinning around in circles and barking, a frantic whirl of fur and teeth… a loud bark coming from an animal that looked on the verge, and thus Apollo transformed into the world’s most intimidating chimera of a guard dog.
Apollo was content in his Apollo-ness, he never bothered to learn commands (a wolf-trainer gave it a go, but Apollo didn’t see the point) or be very dog-like. He was just Apollo, no more no less, happy to spin and take naps in the sun. You could tell how much he loved my mom, always putting his head in her lap, asking for her attention, and you could tell how much my mom loved him, because she’d put up with his doggy-breath. Apollo was truly a unique and special dog, and I’m saddened that I will no longer be able to watch him wobble.
Requiescat in pace.
Well said He will be missed!
Thank you!