Not-so-shaggy dog story

It's a shame, really, that most people who met Rupert never knew him as the king (or Prince) of beasts that he truly believed that he was. Many of my friends only came to know him in his later, more flatulent years. Those of us who knew him all his life understood that it was only a passage, not the entire story. I miss him today.
Rupert, or Prince Rupert (as his papers named him), came into our lives hard on the heels of the passing of another beloved pet, Snoopy. Both were black dachshunds, and I'm sure that there was some trepidation on my parent's part when it came to getting a "replacement" for a puppy who had only lasted long enough to break our hearts. We needn't have worried. Rupert was definitely in for the long haul.
Rupert had what amounted to the doggie version of the Napoleon Complex. He liked to stand on the front porch of our cabin, chest puffed out, and bark down into the meadow. The resounding echo effect certainly fed his mighty ego, as he was the toughest thing for yards around. He was exceptionally good at opening the screen doors with a bump of his nose, and if there was a squirrel foolish enough to cross the path out the back door, he was off like a shot and all we could do was wince in anticipation of the door slamming shut after the spring caught it.
In the mountains, he was a different dog. He ran with labradors and retrievers. He imagined himself a worthy opponent for not one, but two huskies. They tore him up. After the mauling, Rupert crawled under my parent's bed and wouldn't come out for anyone or anything. His good friend and canine confidant, the real King of Aspen Meadows, the German Shepard Thor came to pay his respects. Thor crept under the bed with Rupert and stayed there with him until he could face the day again.
There were a number of different encounters with porcupines and other wild beasts that should have taught him a lesson, but Rupert was determined to assert his presence. In his later years, when our trips to the mountains were less frequent, he did become more sedentary. A friend of mine observed that he was "kind of like an old man - it's like 'Hey, I know I farted. I'm old. So what?'" Like many of his breed, Rupert developed some chronic back problems as he aged. It became necessary, periodically to give him muscle relaxants. Given his long and low body construction, he would sometimes have difficulty making a corner, not unlike a jacknifed big rig.
I remember the summer day that my father came down to the bindery floor where I was working from his office upstairs. He told me that he had taken Rupert to be put to sleep that morning. I hadn't been living at home for more than a year, but I still felt like a trap door had opened beneath me. I felt momentary outrage at not being asked to come along - not being consulted in some way. I had held him down while the porcupine quills had been pulled out of his nose, his backside, his neck. I had chased him around the vacant field above our house and taken him for walks with the other neighborhood dachshund, Baron. Now he was gone. I missed him. Rupert was gone. I miss him still.