A little over 12 years ago I brought home a beagle pup to the welcoming arms of my son and daughter, then aged 11 and 5. The last of our three hounds had died two years earlier, and the interregnum had merely intensified their longing for a new beagle.
The pup in question, a fetching female we baptized Beatrice, was an offspring of the hunting pack I have run with–the Wolver Beagles of Middleburg, Virginia–for many years, and a genuine aristocrat of the breed. Her grandfather, as I like to mention at almost any opportunity, had been a member of the Eton College Hunt; and between her Virginia provenance and English background, she was the first, and by far the most extravagantly, purebred hound it has been my privilege to know.
Apart from all that, she was–and remains–a beagle. An acquaintance of ours, when informed of this latest addition to the family, raised one quizzical eyebrow, and asked, “You knowingly got a beagle?” She was quickly housetrained and never showed evidence of any behavioral anomalies, but she was, withal, one of those merry hounds who put their nose to the ground and follow the scent, wherever it leads them. She has the stubborn streak characteristic of the breed–obedience is not Beatrice’s strong suit–and my saxophone playing is often complicated by her sung accompaniment.
Beatrice was swiftly and passionately adopted by my children, who would spend countless hours admiring her floppy, velvety ears and tricolored coat. In the evening she would go on her rounds, journeying from the bed of one sleeping child to the other, before retiring in the master suite. When taken for a walk around the block she would be descended upon by the gleeful neighborhood children and would patiently stand and lick the proffered hand or face as they squeezed and caressed her.
As I often point out to admiring visitors, Beatrice has an air of glamour about her and, between an elegant Hampden-Sydney College collar and a shiny Fairfax County (Va.) dog tax tag, an impeccable sense of fashion. Even with a damp coat, or an elongated nose topped off with snow, she has the look and bearing of the natural patrician she is.
This is not to say that Beatrice has wasted her existence in a series of regal poses. When I retire to my study at night, she enters silently, curls herself into what we call a “beagle ball” on the nearby pillow, and keeps me company. The fact that a small wooden box containing dog treats sits on an adjacent table has nothing to do with it, of course. She is always likely to sit at one’s feet–or in one’s lap, or at the foot of one’s bed, depending on the circumstances–and her penetrating gaze and occasional snores and wheezes are, by any measure, therapeutic. As I have always said, the sight (and sounds) of a beagle curled up on a plaid pillow in front of a fireplace, with or without fire, is the closest thing to a homegrown narcotic I know.
Now, as it happens, the 11-year-old has grown to be a medical student four hours away, and the 5-year-old is about to abandon the homestead for college. Beatrice, too, is showing her age. The tricolored coat is now heavily flecked with gray, and the scope of her universe is considerably shrunk. She also has Cushing’s disease, the production of excess hormones in the adrenal glands, which has yielded a series of classic symptoms that have significantly slowed her down in the past year and will, I suppose, lead ultimately–and perhaps even prematurely–to death.
In the meantime, and to our considerable surprise, she developed Sudden Acquired Retinal Degeneration Syndrome, which is to say she has become blind, practically overnight. No doubt, this has been a considerable shock to her otherwise resilient system, but I am pleased to report that she seems to have taken the darkness in stride. To be sure, she is at times confused and only gradually learning the obstacles and contours of her invisible world, but she is evidently not agitated or in any sense tormented by this sudden calamity, in which case we should be sadly contemplating ending her misery.
She is, in fact, behaving largely as a beagle would: Except for a certain disposition toward incontinence–which, we pray, she is slowly correcting–Beatrice’s instinct for personal comfort and quiet sociability is, so to speak, seeing her through. She has lengthened the hours of her beauty sleep and putters contentedly about, gently bumping into piano legs and door jambs. Her appetite is diminished, and she has suddenly grown finicky about food, but what else is new? After a lifetime of service to the Terzian household, and a lot of laughter, she deserves a comfortable exit.
PHILIP TERZIAN
