Dear Jules,
When we first decided to get a Corgi, it was because your Godparents Mark and Eliza had corgis and we thought they were good dogs: not too small, not too big, relatively well-behaved. So we read up on Corgis and decided to get a Cardigan Corgi; these are more rare and, according to the reviews, not as "yippy." Corgis, we read, were from Wales and were considered fairy dogs; because they are so small and have a distinctive marking on their backs, the story was that fairies used to ride on them (much the way you later tried to ride on Puck)-
But I'm getting ahead of myself. We were going to name him Oberon, king of the fairies in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream, and then we saw him and met him, and he was a Puck, the somewhat naughty fairy from the same play.
Dad and I got Puck shortly after we were married; Nagyi remembers going with us to pick him out, and aunt Maggie and uncle Lee were there when we took him home. There were lots of puppies, and then there was 8-month-old Puck, who had a paralyzed ear. His parents were in dog shows but, since his ear never came up, they couldn't show him. He became ours and lived with us in Hillsborough for a year, during which time he met your Godsister Beatrice.
I love this picture because it illustrates what a great dog Puck always was. You could pull on his ears or his tail and he would just tolerate it, especially if you were a kid. When we moved to Charleston, Puck lived with us in the Holy Family parish house for 2 weeks until we could move. He was there with us in Savannah when Grammy went to SCAD:
When we had settled down in Charleston, we took him to be blessed at Grace Church, which is the church we currently attend.
He was, and will always be, our first baby, and we were a little bit nervous when you were born. How would he react? Sometimes Corgis nip at children, but Puck always knew you were his sister. From the time you came home from the hospital, he was always with you, watching your back. Sure, sometimes he would get mad that we were paying more attention to you and leave a little bit of poop in your room, but he mostly tolerated you and, more than that, saw you as his sister, a member of our family.
Throughout the years, Puck became a member of our family, including our family of friends. He really loved Bertie's dog Zoe, and he even dealt with her dog Tucker (both corgis like him).
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| With Zoe, waiting for a walk |
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| With Tucker (who is jealous) |
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| Thanksgiving 2013 (?) |
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| Christmas 2019 |
He always loved playing with the soccer ball as well, and he enjoyed the water.
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| I think Puck ended up destroying this thing! |
By the time he was an old dog, he even grew to love your tutus and would choose to sleep in them.
Although he was never a cuddler (if someone was crying or upset, he would get freaked out and leave them be), he was always a herder, a part of our family. I have so many memories of him with you, especially during the very rare snowfalls we had here in Charleston.
During the time we went to Seabrook on a vacation and took him with us,
But mostly just around our house, doing the things that families do (including one time when you decided to read to him).
He was with us through multiple hurricane evacuations, multiple illnesses, and, of course, the COVID pandemic. In some ways, I'm thankful for all of that time with him- it came near the end of his life and we really did get to spend a lot of quality time together.
When I went to the vet's office to pick up his ashes (like I told you, his body is with us now but he is in heaven), they told me he was "coming home," and this is true. I thought about whether we should bury him somewhere, but where? He's been with us through so much. I thought about sprinkling his ashes but, as a herding dog, the thing he loved best was his family. So now he is home, watching over us forever. We will probably get another dog someday, but Puck will always have a place in all of our hearts, and I hope you never forget him.
