Dexter: Four-legged torpedo, harbinger of chaos, annoyer of squirrels, rocket-fueled party animal, supreme and loyal friend and a con artist nonpareil. We said goodbye to him today.

He was 15. We got him when he was six months old and named Cletus (not a good ‘city name,’ so we changed it). Like a lot of Jack Russell terriers, most of his life alternated between periods of all-out activity, all-out sleep and all-out plotting for world domination.

He was probably more successful with me on that last bit than he was with my wife, who is not going to to be out-stubborned by anyone or anything. Me, I found the concept of being ordered around by a 13-pound animal endlessly hilarious, probably more so than was in my best interests. Dexter quickly picked out the household softie and worked on him accordingly.

Or so I thought. It wasn’t long before I realized that Dexter was really Kristi’s dog, and that the tough-woman act probably fell by the wayside when I wasn’t around. He slept when she slept, got up when she got up, ate when she ate. I was basically the ‘B’ team to be called upon when he felt that some personal need was not being appropriately met, or if he wished to be amused by the monkey.

That version of Dexter has been gone for a while. His personality flipped in the last 18 months as his physical gifts faded, and he often isolated himself from us for long periods of time. Finally, this week, he could no longer stand without constant assistance, and his suffering became increasingly obvious.

Dexter was probably my last dog, or certainly my last dog for a very long  while. Here’s a final salute to better times. Goodbye, my friend: