RIP Apollo
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.