Biscuit has left us.

At the time when there is so much human death and suffering in the world it is difficult to focus on the demise of a dog. However, when Biscuit died this last Thursday it was still difficult for our family.

Biscuit came to us over 15 years ago and was reportedly a “beagle mix.” As he grew to over 65 pounds it was clear he was neither a beagle nor a mix of anything. He turned out to be a “Tennessee Walker coon hound” that had been specifically bred to aggressively chase raccoons up trees. While Biscuit was clearly well designed for that task, we had no need for his special capabilities.

Biscuit’s breeding meant he could climb a 6-foot fence looking almost like Spider-Man in the process. This allowed him to escape his dog run and gain intimacy with the things he most loved, predominantly deer excrement. Why he was so enamored with this I’ll never figure out, but it led to a man versus dog exercise of trying to raise the fence surrounding the dog run ever higher to keep him caged. There were a couple of years when we got it up to 10 feet and he would howl in frustration. Biscuit then started to tear down parts of the fence to escape.

Beyond this unique capability Biscuit was fairly limited. He never figured out how to open a door or gate, or even how to go downstairs. On the occasions where he wound up on the wrong end of a staircase, we had to carry him down. It was a strange dichotomy.

Unfortunately, Biscuit developed Cushing’s disease several years ago, which basically meant he was “on steroids.” Despite supportive measures, he had a very progressive decline and our home basically became a dog hospice the past 6 months. But since he escaped the “kill shelter” over 15 years ago, he had a good run.

Biscuit was in many ways a simple creature. His life was focused around three things; eating, running around crazily and recycling his food. Unlike some of our other dogs he did not get hung up about anything other than being fed.

All of this made Biscuit the perfect editor for a blog post. He never was trapped in the aesthetics of anything related to coronavirus and simply focused on the reality of dealing with the pandemic. In his finest moments it was almost as if he was trying to climb the fence out of the crazy limits that COVID-19 placed on our society.

Biscuit was very pleased that he lived long enough to know that there was a vaccine and an eventual end to the pandemic. Tomorrow, his final blog post appears entitled “Biscuit’s least credible rumors about the coronavirus vaccine!” 

He also told me to tell everyone to get the vaccine even if he wasn’t around to benefit from it.

Postscript: a big shout out to Mark at Country Kennel who provided Biscuit some of his happiest days!