My Sweet Guido (The Gweege)
(b) October 23, 1988 -- (d) December 26, 2003
He Never Met a Stranger .....
Guido was one of those dogs where you say, "There will never be another one like him!" I got him just before I started doing rendezvous back in 1988 and he became a road dog. He loved traveling and camping out in the big tent. He never met a stranger. When I first brought him home I had to wean him because I got him too early. The only thing I could get him to chew was pizza crust so I figured he was Italian. But since he was black, I figured he was Black-Italian.
Once I moved to New Mexico, he started to wear a sombrero so I figured he was part Spanish-American. He spoke the only Spanish I could understand and he wore his sombrero proudly at the festivals!!! So now I had it figured out -- he was Black-Italian, Spanish American!!!
At the Michael Martin Murphy festival in Taos, New Mexico (1992), the TV camera crew came over to the tent and filmed Guido taking a siesta on a hay bale for a promotional advertisement for the festival. Guido made it on national TV!!!!
Guido proudly wore his sombrero (1997) to festivals with me when I had a vendor booth set up. He was a great salesman! People would see him in my booth and say, "Oh, what a cute little dog!" Then they would come into the booth to pet him and see something they wanted to buy! We were a team.
Guido lost most of his hair in his old age so he wasn't as magnificent looking as he was as a child but he was still the most beautiful dog on earth! He won every heart he met. Even big men who claimed that big men shouldn't like little dogs were won over by his charm. He never met a stranger.
When Guido started to lose his appetite, my friend, Leta, bought me a new puppy. She knew Guido was failing and she didn't want me to be alone. I named the new puppy "Gandalfe the Black Dancer". He wanted so bad to play with Guido, but Guido was tired. The first thing they had in common, though, was The Frog. You can see a picture of all three of them in the slide show when Gandy was ten months old.
Guido was such a special boy. He loved children, other dogs, human beings ..... everything. He went with me wherever I went. The first time I had to leave him overnight with a friend was when I went on a 30 mile ride on horseback through the New Mexico countryside from Glorieta, New Mexico, to Santa Fe, New Mexico. It was a pre-1840 re-enactment which Guido loved to do and I was sad that for the first time in four years we were apart. He wouldn't let anyone touch him, he would hide under the chair and growl at whoever came close. He didn't understand. He wanted his Momma and nobody else.
He was my pal, my companion, my confidant, my comfort, my partner in solitude, my dearest friend, my life. The little dog that all my friends from the east coast to the west coast had met on the road and fell in love with -- the little dog with the most friends in the world. I have, I continue to, and I will forever, cry for him.
The hole inside my heart will not heal.
Guido's Relatives
I don't know anything about Guido's relatives. I got him from a home breeder in Minneapolis, Minnesota, back in 1988. I didn't plan on breeding him -- he was just going to be my buddy -- and so his geneology was not important to me at the time. I wish now that I would have checked into it.
Shed not for him the bitter tear,
Nor give the heart to vain regret;
It is but the grave that lies there,
The gem that fills it sparkles yet.
Through it all, Guido will always be remembered .....
Guido's Links:
