Missing

Mrs. Kensington (or "Kensie," as she was usually called), pictured above, is missing and presumed dead. We're not sure what happened, but we're pretty sure the details of her demise are not for the squeamish, so I won't share any of our theories with you. This blog entry is in memory of the shivery little dog with the lolling tongue.

Mrs. Kensington came to us while I was in law school eight or nine years ago. We adopted her out of grocery cart in Pet Smart from a woman and her daughter who ran an Italian greyhound rescue. If you are not familiar with the breed, they look like real greyhounds, but in Mini-Me form. Full grown, they usually do not weigh more than about 10 pounds. So we adopted Kensie, who I believe was named Suzy-Q at the time (but that was a temporary name the rescue had given her). We changed her name to Mrs. Kensington (after the Austin Powers character of the same name).

Kensie came into a house where two dogs were already ruling the roost: Chance (our English Setter) and Grits (my cocker spaniel mix). Joe thought Chance needed a playmate because Grits was not really playful enough (Grits had spent his whole life thus far following me from room to room to room to room so he was tired). Joe thought Kensie would be a great playmate for Chance even though Chance was 4 or 5 times Kensie's size.

(Remind me to tell you about the time when Joe was a boy and his pet owl ate his pet mouse off his shoulder -- well never mind, that's all there really is to that story. )

The first night Kensie came home to us, she ran underneath the back porch and wouldn't come out. We eventually had to send Grits in after her. Joe spent the remainder of that evening holding her poor little shivery self, but in the end, Kensie bonded to me because she sat on my lap for hours every day while I studied (I was in law school -- lots of studying). My friends from law school remember Kensie as the skittish little dog that was either always in my lap or in my arms if I was standing up. If I wasn't holding her, she was flitting around nervously or jumping up into the chair I was in anyway. Whenever anyone tried to pet her, she started to shivering and wouldn't stop until they went away.

Kensie was the only dog I have ever seen who hit the top of her head when she sneezed. She would shake her head really fast gearing up for the sneeze and then duck her head between her legs, so that the top of her head was right above the floor. So when she finally actually sneezed, the top of her head banged the floor pretty hard. I always wanted to get that on video, but it's so hard to predict a dog sneeze in time.

Shortly after we adopted Kensie, we took her to have her teeth cleaned and the vet had to pull several of her teeth on the left side of her mouth. For dogs, if you don't have teeth, you don't have anything to hold your tongue in, so Kensie's tongue perpetually stuck out of the side of her mouth. Several years ago, the vet had to pull even more of Kensie's teeth, so her tongue stuck out even more, to the tune of an inch and a half where before it was only about half an inch.

Kensie started losing her eyesight in these last two years. For security, she would stand over the top of Grits' head whenever he was lying down. I guess she relied on him to lead the way when something exciting happened. After Grits died last year, Kensie mainly stuck to her bed by the back door, getting up to follow me around less and less in the last few months. When whe was up and around, she was more and more underfeet and running into walls and any unexpected obstacle in her usual path. I knew it was getting very close to time to let her go.

We'll miss you Kensie.