Tristan Xavier Stayer—the dumpiest, doofiest, dim-wittedest, and dearest basset hound that there ever was—passed away this week. Or, to be straightforward, I should say we killed him. My brother, sister-in-law, and I. Not in cold blood, of course. He was thirteen years old, and the slow drift of the past three years had become a rapid decline, and it seemed the only decent thing to do.
I had wanted a basset hound since fifth grade, when I met a friend’s basset. Growing up, my siblings and I had had a beloved beagle, so medium-sized hounds were built into my sense of what makes a home. But as an adult, I didn’t get my own dog until the age of thirty-three. Somewhere between middle school and middle age, the basset hound of my imagination had shrunk to the size of a beagle. This error was remedied the moment I stepped out of my car at the breeders’ home, and thirty basset hounds swarmed towards me, yowling like lost souls in hell. My childhood beagle had been about twenty-five pounds, whereas these low-lying tanks—lumbering, gigantic torpedo-beasts—were easily eighty pounds. Whoa, I thought, this is bigger and messier than I had bargained for. The sensible thing to do would have been to admit that maybe I wanted a long-eared beagle and to apologize to the breeders for wasting their time. But by this point in my life, it seemed dumb to turn back. So I picked one out. Large, slobbery dogs may not be to everyone’s taste, but there is nothing cuter than a basset hound puppy.
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