Clara Faromondo

Paca was the real deal, a beagle through and through. Her parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents were all champions. Her birth certificate came with the pompous name of Clara Faromondo, which embodied all that she was supposed to be, another aristocratic beagle that was destined to win as many trophies as possible.

However, her life turned out to be quite different from her ancestors. She was born on a beautiful morning during the beginning of spring in the outskirts of Warsaw, and developed into a playful puppy that was quite stubborn, biting everything that was within reach. All her siblings found new owners very soon, but she had been born with one eye darker than the other one and an extra nipple. It was obvious she did not have anything to do with championships and medals, instead she was looking for trouble and fun, and the Faromondo name was just too big for her.  When I met her one sunny afternoon in June, I immediately fell in love with her, and she looked more like a Paca to me, so the nickname stayed with her.

Paca lived each phase of my life as her own. She stood by me during those long Eastern European winter nights, when the sun sets at 4 p.m. and anyways spends all the waking ours playing hide and seek with the fog. She sat next to me while I was studying, and actually made me get out of the house to discover parks, mountains and forests to shoo away the blues. She also spent countless days soothing me with her presence, when I suffered from a bad cold or a  stomach flu. She always welcomed me back home, from my trips abroad, with tremendous canine parties, which usually included howls, barks, licks, and her tail wagging at one-thousand movements per minute. 

She never competed, but it did not prevent her from getting plenty of prizes, from bones, toys, road trips with her head out of the car window with her tongue out, enjoying the wind on her long ears, to plane journeys in humongous cages more appropriate for a German Shepard. She went to parties, to the mountains, to friend’s houses, to the sea, she played on the snow, on forests in the tundra, on the sand, on the pavement, on grass, on the wooden floor of my apartment. Today, I can still remember her sweet smell behind her ears, that smell of love and home, that smell of my Paquita.

She is gone now, but at the same time, she is still with me, on my photos and my memories. I can still see her running around, looking for treats, barking and bringing me her green tennis ball or smelling her leash, asking me with her eyes to take her for a walk, whispering that old secret that says that time flies, that life passes on a wink, and that we all need to live it to the fullest. Even now, she makes me want to whistle, calling her to my side.