Sir Chester Of Falmouth
"Chester"
April 21, 1992 - May 4, 2009

Okay, so Chester's full name screams a kid made it up. I was just a kid when I finally got the dog I'd wanted for years! Chester was born April 21, 1992. He was instantaneously my best friend. No one in the family was prepared for this jumpy, crazy, super fast dog that didn't listen to anyone. The only trick we were able to teach him was "roll over" and if you had any food in your hand, he'd roll over again and again until he got a treat! I was the only person who could catch him, or control him at all. We would sit on his picnic table for hours his head in my lap, the only time he was ever calm.

When I left to join the Navy I gave him a rawhide bone. Normally, a bone lasted about 20 minutes. This one lasted over a year. He wouldn't eat it. He stashed it in my room when he went out for the day, and ran back into my room, grabbed his bone and curled up on my comforter by night. Talk about loyalty. A few years later I had a home of my own, and first thing I did was bring him down to me. Three days later, he finally calmed down. He was 10!

Chester is now 17, still pretty spry for an old puppy. Hero thinks he's great fun to wrestle with, Morgaine the cat loves him and follows him everywhere, and the rabbits like to say hi whenever he goes into their room. In short, he's the most loved member of this diverse family. I can't imagine life without him, although I know it will come one of these days. He is the best friend a girl could ever have. And he still won't listen to anyone but me.

I wanted to leave everything I'd written about Chester in life, because he will always live on in my heart. I can still feel the weight of him the first time I held him, and the feel of his teeth on my fingers. I am reminded of him by the things Isabella does. She loves my socks, so did he. She likes to play keep away, it was his favorite game when he was young. When I feel like I want to cry, her head appears on my lap, just as his always did. Perhaps he told her how to care for me, because she now forsakes the couch to lay at my feet, where Chester always was. Yet she is a different dog, and though she and Hero ease my heartache, they cannot completely erase the large part of my heart that has always been Chester's, and always will be. He was a girl's best friend, a restless teenagers confidant, and as we grew older together, the best companion anyone could ever ask for. Not by accident did Chester have a large heart-shaped marking on his side. He was love, pure and simple, both given and received.