Dandy Warhol

My child and friend of sixteen years has passed away. (March 2007 – 20 Jan 2024). Thank you to all of my friends and family who helped me take care of her these past sixteen years. She has chewed up many of my books. She had a long and happy life. She has seen a great deal of this country, and she was loved by everyone who knew her. She had many doggo and human friends.
I adopted her from the Tuscaloosa Metro Animal Shelter in May 2007 when she was two months old. The shelter called her “Kiwi,” but I didn’t like that name. I chose to name her after a rock band that I was really into at the time.
Wherever I moved, she went with me. We lived for four years in Alabama: Tuscaloosa and then Mobile. While at the University of Alabama, I would often take her to the university’s Quad, and she would play with other students and their dogs. She also went with me to parties, and all of my friends got to know her really well. While living in Mobile, we often went to the beach in Gulf Shores. Another favorite spot was the Church Street Graveyard, a gated cemetery just behind the Mobile Public Library. We then lived in Bolivar, Missouri for a year. I would often take her to a park that had ducks and turtles. She had to wear sweaters, and she enjoyed playing in the snow and conversing and zoom-zooming with the neighbor’s dog. We then lived in Tempe. She rode with me all the way down I-10 from Jacksonville to Arizona, so she got to see Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and New Mexico. In Tempe, she made more doggo and human friends. There was a park along our apartment complex where she once saw a coyote. I had to keep her away from the coyote and the swans. We then lived in St. Louis for six years. She loved going to Forest Park and lying in the grass and by the fountains. We watched movies and listened to concerts in the park with other St. Louisans. Again, there was snow, and she loved jumping in it. She spent her remaining years with me in Tampa, where she could play outside and avoid the sandhill cranes.
Her favorite song was “Dandy” by the Kinks. We would dance to that song. Her least favorite was “Clean, Clean” by the Buggles, which I would play whenever it was time to take a bath.
I am very grateful for my friends and family, who helped me take care of her or watched her while I had to be away for one reason or another.