Remebering Willie

Our wonderful Corgi, Willie, died this past Saturday after an eight month struggle with lymphoma. We joke about that day in the spring of 1999 when Jude announced, "Frank, we are getting a dog". Friends of ours, here on Ocracoke, had known that Jude was interested in getting a Pembroke Corgi. They told Jude that relatives in New York had a six month old male tri-color and it just hadn't worked out. A couple of weeks later, they brought him all the way down to Hatteras and we went over and met our beautiful boy for the first time. We can't remember his whole name, but it was Prince somethingy-something. He came with AKC papers, which we haven't seen in many years. I must admit he wasn't so awe inspiring at the beginning. He was scared to go up or down stairs and he had terrible separation anxiety problems. He also didn't take too well to being corrected. The stairs he overcame pretty quickly and that was good because it would have been tough making it on Ocracoke where our home and many other buildings are on pilings elevated above flood level. I say he overcame stairs, but that isn't totally true. It was several years before he was running up and down our old twisted wood staircase with Dale, back when he and Jaren lived with us. He would run and bark up and down, chasing Dale or visa versa. He had a real thing about chasing Dale. We would go to the beach, back when everything wasn't illegal, and Dale would take off running down the beach. Meanwhile, we would hold on to Willie, straining and barking. Finally, when Dale had a couple hundred yards head start, it was turn him loose and the chase was on. It was his job to catch him and herd him back. The chase usually ended with Willie leaping up in front of Dale to make him stop. It was amazing to see how fast those short legs churned. More like a quarter horse than a thoroughbred. A few years ago, we remodeled our upstairs replacing the old stairs with an open tread circular staircase. Willie refused to acknowledge the new stairs. He got as far as the second step to recover his Chippie stuffed toy, but that was it. His separation anxiety gradually diminished. There were times when he wasn't happy to be left at home by himself, which wasn't often , and he'd leave us a mess to express his absolute displeasure with us which we in turn would show ours by ignoring him for an hour or so. Or we would let him out when we got home and he would take off for a few hours just to show us and then we would show him by closing up and make him sit on the porch barking to be let back in.
There are so many wonderful stories about this beautiful, intelligent, strong-willed and loving four legged companion who lived and worked with us for almost twelve years.
Jude was adamant that we were not going to have a dog named Prince whatever. She stressed over this for a few weeks and then woke me up in the middle of the night to announce his name was Willie. We did a progression since he knew Prince. At first it 'The dog formerly known as Prince' ( yeah I know), then it was Prince Willie and then just Willie. He liked his new name. Of course there were variations. When we called him Willis, usually in a loud voice, he knew whatever he was doing, stop and pay attention. And then someone we love called him Woodis, which was fine with him.
Willie loved going to Burger King. Hamburger and french fries were his lunch of choice if we were on the road. Kill Devils, up the beach was another favorite, especially that cup of custard they always gave him. He also loved peanuts, almonds, peanut butter, and hemp pretzels. Honestly, he wanted anything we ate except lime tortilla chips, hot sauce and guacamole. We have always had a herd of cats. He had his favorites. We rescued Evie from the Texaco campground. She was tiny and suffering from a sinus infection. Willie was her guardian her whole life. Nobody messed with his Evie. If he was out lying in the grass, there was Evie curled up next to him, back to back. He was also good a herding cats. Sometimes he just enjoyed chasing them, sometimes they chased him, playing tag your it.