I wrote this poem some seven months later.. I was sitting by the window and looking up at the sky I see a huge cloud that looked just like Dex running towards me and this vision stayed for quite a long time, only slowly dissolving and the last I saw was like 'his paw waving to me'...

Chalamas Culpeper
* DEX *
16 April 1986 - 21 January 1998

You weren't my first Mini, but my own special one
It's hard to believe you're several months gone,
The pain feels just like yesterday.

You haven't really gone as such
Shadows of you are everywhere
Even can hear you snoring I swear.

Can't stop calling you
Can't stop missing you
And I can't reach out and touch..

I remember it all so well
The day we all fell under your spell
The second you bounced into our life -
So handsome, so charming, SO alive!

How proud we were
Of our living, dancing, walking, talking Schnauzer 'bear'..

Couldn't stop cuddling you
Couldn't stop laughing with you
'Twas so easy to love you so much..

Throughout your life your heart often went keel to port
(It had always been doing a slow Foxtrot)
Each time the vet would knit his brow
You'd eye him up and a raspberry you'd blow -
"I am a Schnauzer I'll have you know -
You'll see I shall soon recover!"

And it always worked. Until the day
Our mutual friend Time did move away
And in its place must come The Big Hush..

We did say Good Bye forever
Felt the needle's sudden rush in your vein,
And I took your breath away
As I hugged you until it was all over.
And the tears flowed like a river.

Thanks DEX, for those wonderful memories you are
Until we meet again.

************

DEX is since reunited with 'his cousin Henry'
who was raised and trained by DEX the Schnauzer way![b]