This is hard. We are so very sorry to have to tell you this, dear friends on the interweb. It is with a heavy heart that we must let you know that we have said a tearful farewell to our beloved Willie.

He had had it hard of late, but did not complain. He was a brave dog and he stayed with us as long as he could, which is all we ever asked of him from the time he was a puppy. That little dog lived a large life, but in the end his struggles had become more than anybody or any dog should have to endure. He enriched our lives for nearly 17 years and never said a cross word. We loved him more than words can say. The ways in which he touched our lives cannot be counted. Before we got him as a four-month-old, we liked dogs. He turned us into total dog people.

To you, who have been Willie’s fans and who have read his stories over the years, we want to send a huge (!) huge (!!) THANK YOU for sharing Willie’s journey. He enjoyed hearing from you so much.

Bertram Wilberforce Woofster Mackenzie, 1994 - 2011

No. 2 wrote a poem.

************

Now I have come to the end of the happy days,
And I am blessed that they were so many.
And now I have come to the end of the sad days,
And I am blessed that they were so few.
I will leave an empty place in your heart,
But that place will be filled with love,
And when all the empty places in the world have been filled,
Then we will be together again.

– Dana Mackenzie

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For fifteen years we’ve had a message on our answering machine that goes like this: “If you’d like to leave a message for Kay or Dana, please start talking at the tone. If you want to leave a message for Willie, please start barking at the tone.” You’d be surprised how many people bark! It always makes us smile.

We will leave Willie’s stories here on the interweb for other dogs and their humans to discover. And if you want to leave a message for Willie…

A fond farewell,
All the Mackenzies

Lately, I’ve been feeling so sleepy that I usually just take a nap through lunch.

But just the other day, it was gorgeous outside and I had a little bit of pep in my step, so I went and joined No. 2 and the baby Klingons out there.

No. 2 had his camera out and he was taking pictures of the Klingons. When he saw me come out, he aimed the camera at me. I was kind of walking towards him and then, just before he snapped the picture, I turned my head to the side.

No. 2 said, “What did you do that for?” But then he looked at the picture on the display thingie in his camera, and all of a sudden he changed his tune. In fact, he allowed as how that was practically the best picture he’d ever taken of me.

Don't you think I know which is my good side?

It’s kind of funny that after more than 16 years together, he’s finally figured out how to take a good picture. Listen to the dog!

Woofs,
Willie

Three more fleas.

These guys are okay. They don’t bother me me much. However, there are times… witness the invasion of my crate!

Hmph.

That’s really a bit thick. So is this.

Watch the personal space dude.

No. 1 likes this one, though. She’s a good sewing buddy.

I help you sew that.

Those black ones went back, and then we got these.

New Klingons on the block.

They’re pretty good too, as the species goes. I give them my lessons, but this one flunked the back-of-sofa protocol.

The Klingon-eating sofa.

I'm sinking!

They lie around in the strangest poses. Sometime you wonder if the baby Klingon wars actually did them in.

I didn't do it.

All in all, we get along fine.

Okay, you can have my bed today.

Woofs,
Willie

“Motor won’t go!” pronounced No. 1, and she picked me right up. She gave me a ride all the way home. Isn’t she nice?

The next time we were ready to go to the park, all of a sudden a strange contraption appeared. No. 1 stuck me in it and away we went.

It may look like I'm riding, but in my heart I'm still running.

How do you like my new ride? It makes me feel like a VID (Very Important Dog), because no other dog in the park has one.

The first time I rode in the perambulator I tried jumping out and stubbed my toe. After that I have been very happy just to stay in it and let the humans help me in and out. It’s pretty good. This way I still get out of the house and smell the fresh air and see the sights, but that darn park doesn’t seem so far away any more. Once we get there, I get out and mooch around a little.

I forgot to mention it earlier, but another present the humans got for me quite a long time ago was this little doggie staircase.

Red alert, not for Klingons!

The steps were to make it easier for me to get up into my chair, where I am allowed to lie down while the humans eat dinner.

The only problem with the steps is that, as you can see, our guest baby Klingons like them too. However, at meal time the rules are absolutely clear: the dog gets a clear path, and all Klingons have to get out of the way.

After I’ve gotten up on the chair, the Klingons often come back and lie on the steps below me, which is exactly the way it should be. Dogs above, Klingons below.

Woofs,
Willie

For the longest time, all the humans ever gave me was crunchy dog kibble. Well, that plus a few scraps of human food at dinner time.

But then my teethies started getting old and sensitive, and I didn’t like to crunch it up. Then they didn’t give me hard kibble any more, and I started getting moist food from a can. Then, as I got pickier, they started giving me even moister, tastier food from a plastic tray.

Just when I thought things couldn’t get any better, all that strange stuff happened that I wrote about in my last story. After I got back from That Place for the third time, suddenly they started feeding me all kinds of good stuff. All human food, all the time!

Think about it! It’s like after 16 years, I finally graduated to the grownups!

Here’s what I get sometimes:

Yummy!

Some of you might remember I had a bad experience with this when I was a puppy, but when given in small-dog amounts it’s goooood.

Here’s what I get other times:

Yummier!

Can you believe it? They save the very best part of the chickum just for me.

There’s just one thing that is a little bit strange. When No. 2 gives me the chickum liver, first he takes a little white crunchy thing and then he kind of mooshes the liver around it. Most of the time I don’t even notice the little white crunchy thing, because I gulp that ball of mooshed-up liver down so fast. But sometimes I detect it and I spit it out. That makes No. 2 all upset. “Willie! You have to eat it!” he says.

Eventually when he’s satisfied that I’ve swallowed the little white crunchy thing, then I get a few bites of pure unadulterated liver, and that is much much better. Never mess with a classic, I always say.

So tell me, what are you thankful for today?

Turkey coma.

Woofs,
Willie

It all started with a Double Chocolatey Chip Frappacino.

Can I have some of that?

No. 1 was out of town, so it was just me and No. 2, and we went to the grocery store to get some goodies. On the way back we stopped by a place called Starbucks, which is named after one of the guest Klingons we had last summer. No. 2 ordered his favorite drink, a Double Chocolatey Chip Frappacino. I wanted some, but No. 2 reminded me that the chocolatey part is not good for dogs, so I didn’t get any. He didn’t even have the decency to get the whip cream on top, which I am allowed to have a lick of. Hmph.

Then we started driving again. I remember going around a corner, and then all of a sudden the world got wobbly.

Come I hat of son vath?

I couldn’t feel my legs any more, and I couldn’t even tell where I was. The next thing I knew I was in That Place.

I was walking around this way and that, but I still couldn’t feel my right back leg. I heard them say later that it was sticking out in the air. That didn’t bother me any, but it felt sort of like walking three-legged through deep snow and having to lift my legs way up high before I could put them down.

Gradually the world straightened out, and my leg came back down, and it was all over. Nobody was quite sure what happened. So we came home and I forgot all about about it.

A couple weeks later, when No. 1 and No. 2 were both at home, something like it happened again, only this time it was apparently a whole lot worse. I don’t know, I can’t remember. When the world straightened out again, I was back in That Place, and the humans left me there overnight. I was glad to come home the next day, but ever since then I have to have this horrible-tasting liquid poured down my gullet once a day. The humans know it tastes bad, so they got the idea of mixing it with chicken broth, so now instead of tasting like turpentine, it just tastes like weird chicken broth.

But now it seems as if I feel groggy half the time, and one of the times when I felt groggy I missed my feeties and fell off the bed. After that I started coughing and had to go back to That Place for two more days. If it isn’t one thing it’s another.

All because of a Double Chocolatey Chip Frappacino.

And I didn't even get any!

Woofs,
Willie

We got these guys next.

See how I got them all down for a nap, including No. 2?

I'm demonstrating proper back-of-the-sofa protocol.

Very good students.

The stripey one, she was the boss.

They went back, and then this one came home.

Noisy.

She was a loudmouth like you wouldn’t believe, always spouting off about something or another.

The humans decided that she was lonely, so No. 1 went and got another one to keep her company. At first she was a beast to him, bopping him on the head and making that hissy sound, but after a couple days she let it go and they became BFF.

Where one went, the other went too.

No. 2 took some moving pictures of them and put them up on the You Tubes.

They were all fine for their species, and they all got forever homes. Wonder what’s next??

Woofs,
Willie

Sure, they look all innocent now.

However, the third batch was just fine. These came to us with a case of the sneezles and the wheezles.

They didn't feel that gud.

The tiny tortoiseshell Klingon, the runt of the litter, had it the worst. She didn’t even weigh in at a pound soaking wet, and while the other two Klingons would run and jump around, she would just lie there on the sofa very quiet. Now that’s my kind of Klingon! We got along very well together.

Lullaby... and good night....

However, the humans were worried about her, so No. 1 took her to That Place. After they came home, No. 1 started squirting some sort of white gloppy substance down her gullet for a few days. It may have been that, or it may have been the Tuna Cure that No. 2 invented, but on about Day 3, that tiny thing reached out and batted at a toy!

After that the littlest Klingon started feeling better and began to have a very big appetite. That’s when the humans knew she was going to be all right.

Out of my way, human! That's my yogurt!

Here she is, paying a visit on me in my happy place.

If you won't let me in, I'll just sit out here.

Three Klingons and a tribble. Can you tell which is which?

We wuv each other.

The two orange baby Klingons went back to the shelter when they got over their colds. But the littlest Klingon had a lot of catching up to do, so she stayed with us awhile longer. No. 2 grew extra attached to Bunny (which No. 1 named her because she looked and felt like a dust bunny), and he asked all of his friends if they would like to adopt her. One of his bestest friends, a very nice young human, said yes! She had just adopted a Klingon a month earlier, and that Klingon needed a playtime companion.

Have you hugged your Klingon today?

The best thing about this was that we kept on visiting Bunny at the friend’s place. Here she is a couple months later.

She sprouted legs.

It’s hard to say whether she remembered me, but she definitely remembered that dogs are OK. Her housemate ran away and hid from me, but Bunny came right out and said, “Issa goggie!”

Here’s one more picture, from about half a year later.

Look at that fluffy tail!

I’m glad this story had such a happy ending. For the first time I kind of understood why humans like to keep Klingons around.

Woofs,
Willie

They're tussling.

I don’t know how many there are. Maybe three, but it seems like a lot more because they’re everywhere you look. There’s a whole lotta legs and tails all over the place. I tried adding them up but they move too fast and I can’t count that high. Sheesh, so much for the peace and quiet.

All of them are black, like fleas, and who knows how to tell the difference between them. I don’t think they had ever seen a dog before, because when they first saw me they got their backs up and made the little hissy noises (kind of half-hearted, really). I didn’t pay any attention to this behavior, and within a day they were over it and were not fazed by me whatsoever. Now we all get along fine. And it’s kind of nice being bigger than a Klingon for once in my life!

Sometimes they tear around like crazy.

Prepare to die, fuzzy ball.

Other times they lounge around in all the best spots.

Legwarmer.

It’s kind of my job to watch them.

Nobody fall off. No, we have absolutely no mutual interest in that cereal bowl.

If there’s anything good about being overrun with baby Klingons, it’s that they get very tasty canned food.

All of youz mind your manners.

You gonna finish that?

No. 1 tells me that they’re temporary. All in all, I think that’s for the best.

Woofs,
Willie

Sigh.

“Don’t worry,” she tells me. “He’s temporary.”

See, for years now No. 1 and No. 2 have been going to help out at this place.

Santa Cruz County Animal Shelter

Sometimes the animals there need to go to somebody’s house and live for a little while until they get their forever homes.

So No. 1 brought Munchkin home. She actually calls him Munchie.

He's chewing on Flopsy.

Munchie is all right I guess. We get along fine, except that he’s such a young whippersnapper and a tad too peppy for my taste. He likes to get in between me and No. 1, and actually kind-of pushes me out of the way when we’re all in the kitchen. Kind of thick, I must say.

Displaced!

We went out to lunch at a place that lets dogs eat on their patio.

You gonna eat that?

After a week, Munchie had another place to go. Here he is with his new pack.

Small, medium, and large.

I hear he’s very happy over there, with a couple of nice humans too.

It’s good to be back to the peace and quiet once again.

Woofs,
Willie