Memorial Show for Dina Doggelah, Beloved Companion & TU Mainstay
May 30, 2013 4:00pm
Today Tenants Rights Radio bids farewell to the best counselor the Tenants Union ever had—everyone felt better after talking to Dina—and the best-behaved person at our Steering Committee meetings. Dubbed the Happiest Dog on the Planet by an admirer, Dina was my boon companion for 14 years, until her death yesterday, May 28th.
Too affectionate to be a good judge of character, Dina did, however, invaluably clue the Tenants Union in about which candidate for City office came to our endorsement meeting totally smashed. A lifelong Green, Dina enthusiastically did her part to recycle lunch scraps from the TU wastebaskets—so very enthusiastically that she could occasionally be spotted wearing the swing-through top from one of the wastebaskets.
The Oakland pound said she was a year-old Husky mix. Thirteen years later, I'm glad I didn't know I was in fact adopting a completely untrained six-month old Malamute mix, or I'd have missed out on one of the lights of my life.
The sweetest-natured dog ever, Dina loved human company, and her favorite spot was anywhere in between any two—or three, or four, or ten—friends. At our old apartment building, where she was the only pet, the little kids would gather around her in a circle and play “How Many Hands Can We Get on Dina?” The record was 16 hands, some of them toddlers', all petting her at once. (Dina converted two of our dog-despising neighbors there, each of who became a dog-lover and dog-adopter.)
From the day I adopted her, she could distinguish between libraries and stores, where she'd sit quietly in the car, and Places Where She Could Meet Human Friends: if I pulled up in front of a house, even one we’d never been visited before, Dina would howl—she knew there were about to be humans socializing, and she wanted to be part of it.
Dina was the most playful dog in any given park, and the belle of the park ball. Another dog-owner would begin the familiar litany, “Oh, my dog doesn’t play, he’s eight years old, and after all, he’s a Chow—” and his jaw would drop before he could finish the sentence, as Dina and his Chow-Chow raced by together.
After a period of fierce enchantment/obsession with the new kitten, Dina became a little jealous, and somewhat protective of me around him as well (maybe it was my screams whenever the kitten would launch himself from the floor onto my neck and dig in?) Nevertheless, she would often let him curl up with her to sleep, as she did on her last night.
Dina was diagnosed Friday with lymphoma, with an estimated month to live. Early Tuesday morning, she died painlessly at home. Happy Trails, sweetheart.
PLAYLIST TK
Too affectionate to be a good judge of character, Dina did, however, invaluably clue the Tenants Union in about which candidate for City office came to our endorsement meeting totally smashed. A lifelong Green, Dina enthusiastically did her part to recycle lunch scraps from the TU wastebaskets—so very enthusiastically that she could occasionally be spotted wearing the swing-through top from one of the wastebaskets.
The Oakland pound said she was a year-old Husky mix. Thirteen years later, I'm glad I didn't know I was in fact adopting a completely untrained six-month old Malamute mix, or I'd have missed out on one of the lights of my life.
The sweetest-natured dog ever, Dina loved human company, and her favorite spot was anywhere in between any two—or three, or four, or ten—friends. At our old apartment building, where she was the only pet, the little kids would gather around her in a circle and play “How Many Hands Can We Get on Dina?” The record was 16 hands, some of them toddlers', all petting her at once. (Dina converted two of our dog-despising neighbors there, each of who became a dog-lover and dog-adopter.)
From the day I adopted her, she could distinguish between libraries and stores, where she'd sit quietly in the car, and Places Where She Could Meet Human Friends: if I pulled up in front of a house, even one we’d never been visited before, Dina would howl—she knew there were about to be humans socializing, and she wanted to be part of it.
Dina was the most playful dog in any given park, and the belle of the park ball. Another dog-owner would begin the familiar litany, “Oh, my dog doesn’t play, he’s eight years old, and after all, he’s a Chow—” and his jaw would drop before he could finish the sentence, as Dina and his Chow-Chow raced by together.
After a period of fierce enchantment/obsession with the new kitten, Dina became a little jealous, and somewhat protective of me around him as well (maybe it was my screams whenever the kitten would launch himself from the floor onto my neck and dig in?) Nevertheless, she would often let him curl up with her to sleep, as she did on her last night.
Dina was diagnosed Friday with lymphoma, with an estimated month to live. Early Tuesday morning, she died painlessly at home. Happy Trails, sweetheart.
PLAYLIST TK
