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You are here: Home / Absent Friends / RIP / RIP, Fenway

RIP, Fenway

by | 120 Comments

This post is in: 

Long time friend of the blog TBOGG breaks the sad news that beloved Fenway is no longer with us:

RIP, Fenway

I always wish there was something I could say or do to help when people lose their pets, but really all you can do is tell them how sorry you are.

Reader Interactions

120Comments

  1. 1.

    trollhattan

    We know how awful it feels but you’re right, there’s nothing to say besides “sorry.” And honor Fenway as the fabulous good boy he was. Those ears….

  3. 3.

    Auntie Anne

    He was such a good boy.  I remember the story of Mrs, Tbogg flying to PA to get him. . . So sorry for their loss.

  4. 4.

    SFAW

    One thing that has always come through to me is how much TBogg loves his family, and loves/loved his dogs.

  7. 7.

    Irony Abounds

    Not to diminish the loss of that beautiful basset hound (we had bassets when I was young and the first dog of my wife and I was a basset), but my first reaction to the title of this thread was “Holy Shit, they’re going to replace Fenway Park.” I hate the Red Sox, but I still want to attend a game there before I start pushing up daisies.

  8. 8.

    Soonergrunt

    Tom,

    I don’t know if or when you might see this–

    We all witnessed Fenway’s life and the joy he and his brothers have brought your family over the years, and we’re all terribly sorry for your loss.

    –Mike

  12. 12.

    TaMara (HFG)

    Can I just say, having lost several pets during my Ballon-Juice time, the condolences from this community really does help ease the pain.  <3

     

    I extended my condolences on this twitter feed, but will again say, Fenway was a good dog and he was loved.

  13. 13.

    Auntie Anne

    @HumboldtBlue: Yes, it was.  They’d lost Wembley, and found a Bassett breeder out near State College, PA.  It wasn’t quite a blizzard – but enough to delay her flight back to sunny California.

  16. 16.

    Aleta

    The pictures he’s posted of Fenway and their other bassets over the years have always drawn me in to their beauty.

  18. 18.

    Zelma

    We know that we will probably out live our pets and yet we love them because they love us and are so lovable.  Just looking at Fenway’s picture makes me smile and also tear up because a family that loved him has lost him.  So sorry for your loss.

  20. 20.

    Amir Khalid

    Death notices are inevitably sad. How else can you feel, to learn that a being who loved and was loved is gone?

  22. 22.

    orchid moon

    So sorry for the loss of beloved Fenway.  He looks like he was such a good boy.  Sending thoughts your way.

  23. 23.

    dr. bloor

    @Auntie Anne:

    Yep–I recall Mrs. T’s trip to PA, and T’s keeping us up to date about her journey as well.

     

    A GOOD DOG, and extraordinarily generous humans for sharing their family with us.  Save travels, Fenway.  Wembley is saving you a sunny spot.

  27. 27.

    Buckeye

    (delurking)

    No, not Fenway!

    And I had to euthanize my girl kitty this afternoon, her breast cancer had returned and was too aggressive for treatment. She was 10ish, though I had only had her for 14 months.

    Losing them sucks, and it’s hard to explain to non-pet people how much it hurts.

  28. 28.

    MomSense

    Fenway lived such a good life.  In the midst of grieving, let’s also honor Tbogg for how well he loved and cared for Fenway.

     

    I came home late today and found pup curled up with her boy on the couch.  She’s NOT supposed to be on the couch, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to disturb them.  We are so lucky to have these creatures in our lives even if it does hurt like hell to lose them.

  30. 30.

    OldDave

    Many of us have seen the Rainbow Bridge meme in one form or another by now.  More recently, I came across this image, which I found more comforting when having to contemplate providing to a beloved pet that final gift.

  31. 31.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    If you ever see this TBogg, sorry for your loss. Fenway looks like such a cute, good boy from his pictures and I wish I could’ve gotten to meet him in person and given him a good neck scratch

  32. 32.

    Elizabelle

    Beautiful dog.  He had a good life with you.

    Those are some magnificent ears.  I remember when Fenway was the “new dog.”  Seems like five years, at most.

  34. 34.

    stinger

    I remember the “getting Fenway” story. And have always wanted to wrap myself up in those blankets he used for ears.

  36. 36.

    Elizabelle

    @OldDave:   That’s excellent.

     

    The last panel:  the dog:  I wish I could tell you …  “Thanks for everything.  I had a wonderful time.”

  37. 37.

    moonbat

    So terribly sorry you lost your good boy, T-Bogg. Just remember how much Fenway loved you and your family and you will never truly lose him.

  40. 40.

    VeniceRiley

    You’re a wonderful pet companion, TBOGG. Fenway was a very lucky, and seriously handsome, very good dog. RIP.

  44. 44.

    jnfr

    Have always loved Tbogg’s dogs. So sorry Mr. T.

     

    Take care Buckeye. It’s never easy. We lost one old cat recently and have another slowly fading away. Loving pets can be bittersweet.

  45. 45.

    SiubhanDuinne

    Beautiful pup, and I add my voice to the “OMG THOSE EARS!” comments. So sorry for your loss, TBOGG. Hugs.

  48. 48.

    Raven

    @OldDave: Man, we’re sitting here with our old dogs on our annual Thanksgiving trip to the beach. We got here late in the afternoon so we didn’t take them down to the water but we will for the next few days. Neither of them can make the trek so we haul them in the cart and I’ll carry them down near the water. Lil Bit doesn’t even like it that much but we love having them with us. I’m not big on the “I’m crying” thing we do here but goddamn, that is really something.

  49. 49.

    Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)

    @MomSense:

    We are so lucky to have these creatures in our lives even if it does hurt like hell to lose them.

    Absolutely. I’m struck by people who keep pet fancy rats. The rats have a ton of personality and need at least one partner to live properly but they only live for two years on average. I’ve been thinking of getting some, but it would be tough to lose one

  51. 51.

    Cephalus Max

    I am a multiple basset owner solely because of TBOGG.  Best damn thing I ever did was get my first basset.

    So you could say TBOGG has had a major impact on my life (in addition to making me laugh a whole hell of a lot).

    So sorry to hear about Fenway.

  54. 54.

    Old times

    @Buckeye: sorry Buckeye, I’m looking at putting down my 14 year old boy cat down this week (bone cancer). Weird/sad that this happens on holidays.

  57. 57.

    Buckeye

    @MomSense:

    I always feeling guilty that I didn’t end their suffering sooner. But with Snickers, her cancer returned so quickly and so aggressively that it was only Friday that I realized how far along it was, and my friend couldn’t get me to the vet on Saturday.

    I still had kitty pain pills left over from last year, and tried to ease her pain just a little. She did seem to realize that I was trying to help her as much as I could.

  60. 60.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Irony Abounds:

     

    I have to say, my first reaction was identical. I have been to a game at Fenway, once, toward the end of the 2014 season, and I know there’ve been noises about demolishing and replacing it for years, and it made me sad to think the day had arrived. But I was even sadder when I saw that the post was about TBOGG’s gorgeous dog.

  62. 62.

    Miss Bianca

    Oh, I’m sorry for TBogg, and Buckeye too.

     

    I don’t think I can look at heart-rending cartoons and poems – I am tearing up just thinking about losing pets to death. Luna’s and Stella’s deaths hit me very hard last year and earlier this year, don’t know how I would have made it if first Watson and then Roxy hadn’t appeared out of the blue to soak up the grief and excess love.

  64. 64.

    AnonPhenom

    Condolences to you Tom, Ms. B, and the The Lovely & Talented Casey. Losing a true friend is never easy.

  66. 66.

    (((CassandraLeo)))

    My condolences to TBogg, if he’s reading this, and to Buckeye – and in advance to Old times as well. Losing a pet is the worst experience about owning them, by far, and I always feel so helpless when people go through it. I want to do something, but as John says, apart from offering condolences, there’s really nothing you can do.

  69. 69.

    CarolPW

    @Old times:

    Life is perverse. When I lived in Sacramento (years ago), our sewer regularly backed up around Thanksgiving. I have taken pets to the emergency vets many holidays. I ended up in the emergency room 5 years ago on the 4th of July and since I wasn’t bleeding or burnt like everyone else there they ignored me and I almost died. My oven started doing random temperature settings two years ago a week before Thanksgiving. I got married the day after Thanksgiving. No wonder I am divorced now (although still best friends).

     

    My remaining cat died the Saturday after Thanksgiving last year. The other cat died in the spring of the same year, and the dog in late summer. Last year sucked, and Thanksgiving for me is too often accursed.

  70. 70.

    Dan B

    Your Fenway pics make him look happy and soulful.  It would be nice to see a Buckeye photo but I’ll just imagine a brindle or warm brown kitten.  While I was reading the comments our beautiful smart, striped kitteh came and jumped onto the wide windowsill over my head and stared at me.  He was a six month feral when he arrived here but has become a snuggle critter- spent last night slowly pushing me off the bed trying to get ever closer.  And there’s the snoring and dreams.  They are full of surprises when they get steady loving.

    I hope you have room for more in time.

  71. 71.

    Steeplejack

    Since Raven is on vacation . . .

    Irving Townsend, Separate Lifetimes:

    We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached. Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way. We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necesssary plan.

  74. 74.

    Crusty Dem

    I’ve followed Tom since the dark ages of the internet and seen his magnificent array of puppers, he’s had some amazing dogs and Fenway was one of the best. So sorry for your loss, Tom.

  80. 80.

    SiubhanDuinne

    @Mary G:

    @Buckeye: So sorry for your loss. Snickers is a great name

    I have a friend (online friend; I’ve “known” her for 20+ years but have met her IRL only once, years ago) who had a cat named Snickers. I remember when she acquired it as a tiny kitten, and I remember when it passed, a fine elderly cat, earlier this year.

    Such a great name!

  82. 82.

    geg6

    @Elizabelle:

     

    Yeah, I had the same thought.  I remember when he was just adopted.  Damn, he was beautiful and a thoroughly good boy.  My deepest condolences to the TBogg and his family.

  83. 83.

    HeleninEire

    It was Tbogg who brought me into the internet through Jane (Who knew she was CRAZY) and then to Balloon Juice. Tbogg is one of the best writers ever. Go read his blog about the Romney boys. Go read his blog about the happy fairy gumdrop people. He has a clue.

    I’ve watched 2 of his dogs die. So, so sorry.

  84. 84.

    karen marie

    @SiubhanDuinne:   There have been rumors for decades about building a new stadium but never has there been talk that I ever heard (I moved out of the West Fenway in 2000 but still …) of it being demolished.  If a stadium was built elsewhere, Fenway Park would be turned over to other uses.  Given its age, my guess is that it would take moving heaven and earth to get permission to have it torn down rather than repurposed.

     

    I lived on Queensberry Street, about three blocks over from FP, for over a decade (in Boston proper in total from ’77 to 2000).  The Red Sox were (presumably, still are) terrible neighbors, pretty much treating the West Fenway as though it were an empty wasteland with no residents.  It was infuriating.  After I left is when they started blocking off car traffic on Yawkey Way on game days so they could set up fucking beer sales up and down the street.  Good thing I was gone or there would have been a lot more screaming than they got.  I’m still shaking my fist in the general direction of the Red Sox.

     

    I did get to go inside the ball field though, and that was pretty cool.  It was maybe 1987 or 1988.  Off season, the doors were all just standing open while crews were working on getting the joint ready.  I just walked in with a friend and we kept going till we were on the field.  Nobody cared.  The next year there was a pretty big renovation done.  I was too lazy to carry off any of the bricks that were being thrown out but I did get a piece of fencing from a backstop that I gifted to my mother who was, inexplicably (she had no ties to Boston at all), a RS fan.

     

    I miss the West Fenway.  It is a delightful neighborhood, although less so since the block with the restaurants burned down in 2002 or 2003 or maybe 2004.

  85. 85.

    danielx

    Condolences…..another in the line of good bassets. Was a time when at least one of the Tbogg branch of the basset family tree was considered a bad, bad boy, however.

     

    I just got back from the Padres/Dodgers game (Padres win 6-1. Yay) to find that Beckham has eaten my glasses. That would be the second pair in the past three months leaving me now with one pair. Because of that, he doesn’t deserve to be in Thursday night basset blogging.

     

    The little bastard.

     

    For those keeping score at home, that’s: two pairs of optical glasses, two pairs of sunglasses, eleven CD’s and nine books. Did I mention the $5000 we spent on treatments for him when he was a puppy and developed pneumonia? We’re going on a cruise in June and it’s going to cost about $180 to board him. Frankly I think we’d be better off selling him by the pound.

     

    I hear they taste like chicken.

  86. 86.

    CaseyL

    Gawd, how I miss Thursday Night Bassets at TBOGG’s old place.  Been following his chronicles of dogs and family for a scarily long time.  I’m grateful he’s shared so much, and can only hope the cascade of good wishes helps a bit with this new grief.

    @Buckeye:  I am so sorry for your loss. If it’s any comfort, think about how you gave an old girl a terrific 14 months and were with her when she died.

  87. 87.

    HeleninEire

    When Tunch died Tbogg had on his front page “This is horrible. RIP” Or an equivalent. And he posted that big old gorgeous picture of Tunch with those crazy beautiful eyes.

     

    Tbogg understood John’s pain.

     

    It was one of the first times I came to understand how people love their pets so much.

  89. 89.

    laura

    Thursday nights were very special and looked forward to because you knew you’d see a leggy supermodel Fenway lit up and all aglow and occasionally from the rooftop.

    I wish the Tbogg family all the love and Grace and peace as they mourn the loss of a very good boy. Fenway, you were a very good boy.

  91. 91.

    burnspbesq

    @Irony Abounds:

     

    hate the Red Sox, but I still want to attend a game there before I start pushing up daisies

    It’s a dump (so is Wrigley), but it’s atmospheric as hell. Do go when you can.

  96. 96.

    HeleninEire

    @Kifaru1: LOL I was trying to remember which Bassett was on the roof. And Tbogg describing how the L&T Casey reached for her phone cuz THOSE KIDS THESE DAYS do nothing without their phones.

     

    Crying happy and sad tears all at once.

  98. 98.

    satby

    Tom, Mrs. B, and L&T Casey: deepest condolences on the passing of your sweet Fenway. The deep love you all gave him was his heaven on earth.

     

    @Buckeye: and

    @jnfr: and

    @Old times: Condolences all. May their memories being smiles before tears one day soon.

  99. 99.

    Tata

    @danielx: And yet, when Beckham died, I felt like my own heart stopped. How does that work, that we come to love other people’s pets to that degree? I have four cats and two chickens, and when Tunch died, I couldn’t breathe. This seems like a new thing.

  100. 100.

    Emma

    @OldDave: And I just burst into tears. Pachi is almost thirteen and basically healthy but getting older and slower. We shower him with love every day and he loves us back.

     

    I first visited TBogg for the politics but stayed for the dogs. Have fun in the Elysian fields, Fenway.

  103. 103.

    Auntie Anne

    @Kifaru1: Yes,  I realized my error after posting my initial comment. Fenway was the one who took a stroll on the roof, much to the L&T Casey’s dismay.

  105. 105.

    SectionH

    Oh damn, that sucks. RIP good dog.

    John, you are so right that all we can do is tell them how sorry we are.

  108. 108.

    J R in WV

    @Buckeye:

     

    So sorry for your loss. 14 months doesn’t sound like very long. We’ve had a new pair of puppies, born last Feb, for 6 or 8 weeks now, and we adore them.

     

    So I know how much you can love a kitty in 14 months. Glad you could do that last hardest favor for her. Take care, and stick around.

  115. 115.

    SWMBO

    How we have come to love pets not our own is one of the mysteries of the internet.  Fenway was a good boy that was loved by many.  Condolences to Tbogg, Mrs. Tbogg and LTC.

  116. 116.

    frosty

    I haven’t read Tbogg, and don’t know any of the stories of his dogs, including Fenway, but I sure know the pain of losing your companions. My condolences to the Tbogg family.

  118. 118.

    sherparick

    @Soonergrunt: Dear TBOGG and Family: So sorry to hear that Fenway has passed. I know it just hurts to lose such a good, beautiful dog. I enjoyed seeing pictures of Fenwick and Wembly over the years. Thanks for giving them such a great home all these years.

  119. 119.

    The Moar You Know

    I have never experienced anything more heartbreaking than the death of my last dog.  But I will.

     

    It was quick, it was painless, and I still get a tear in my eye about it near every day.  It’s been six years.  Got another dog (who will also, in due course, break my heart).  Doesn’t matter.  As my unemotional, taciturn father said in a VERY rare moment of candor: “this will leave a black mark on your heart that will never go away”.

     

    He’s right, it does.  I am very sorry, TBogg.

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