This is hard. He was so old, that the last few years of his life, he was so tired and weary, he really didn’t do much. He would always wag his tail when you would walk in the room. He was a very social guy!
We named him Sigmund after Sigmund Freud. We had just made a difficult move to Charlotte, North Carolina, and he was a part of the deal of us moving there. So we got Sigmund. He was the family counselor, and he filled his role well. He could always tell if one of us was upset and was the first one on the spot to try to make you feel better. He was always up for a long walk if you needed to talk something out with another family member, or just have room to think. He would snuggle on you, play with you, or just be there in general.
He loved to play with tennis balls, and would play fetch with them for hours on end. It was kind of funny…being a boy dog, by nature, he was always into “marking his territory” rather than just peeing all at once. But, when tennis balls were being thrown for him, it was all business, so he would always make sure to completely empty his bladder before we got going!
He loved to play with his “babies” (stuffed animals). They were so comforting to him, you could almost never find him without one. I remember when I was in college, and would come home, I always tried to remember a few weeks beforehand to buy a baby, and keep it around me to get my smell on it. Once I gave it to him, it was his favorite from that moment on.
He was an obedience school drop out! Siggs was such a social guy, that when we tried to take him to obedience training, he was much more interested in playing with the other dogs than paying attention to learning a few tricks. He went through several rounds of classes before he finally graduated!
He loved to be loved, and was very insistent on when it was “his turn” for a little attention! If he was bored, and wanted his people to stop what they were doing to pay attention to him, he would become very unrelenting. He would nudge you repeatedly, whine, groan, and finally bark at you to get you to focus on what was most important…HIM!
Everyone loved him. All of our family, our friends, the kids in the neighborhood…everybody. I remember one day when I was home from college, I was taking Sigmund for a walk. This huge hoard of kids came running up to us, and immediately flug themselves upon Sigmund. He LOVED it!
He was just a creampuff. He would never hurt a fly. He had a big booming bark, and he loved to go and outside and bark just for the heck of it. But it was all show. My niece and nephew could crawl all over him as babies, and he didn’t care. He loved the attention. A smaller dog could come up to him and kick his butt. He was just a big sweetie. He had the kindest most sweetest heart around. He was a very important part of our family, and we will always have fond memories of him in our lives.
