First, I'd like to share my condolences and deepest sympathies to all of you out there that have lost a loved pet.  The grief is real.  To come home to an empty house. To see all of your loved one’s toys, medicines, jackets, collars, leashes. To come in the door and naturally look for your loved one, but they're not there. To think you have to do something with your loved one but they’re no longer here.  To hear a bark in the distance that sounded like your loved one only to realize it can't possibly be them. I hope all of you can and have found peace in your heart. 

Baron passed away on April 25^th, 2024, just 11 days shy of his 17^th birthday.  This is Baron’s story, a tribute to the most amazing Manchester and friend that I could have ever been blessed with.  

It all started back in August of 2007.  I picked up a 4-month-old Baron, from Canada, in Cargo city at the Philadelphia Airport.  I could see Baron through the glass at the checkout counter.  They had let him out of his crate, and he was walking around his carrier.  I was intrigued by his body structure, size, and movement.  This puppy with long legs, big feet, and big ears.  Baron’s breeder wasn’t joking, he was going to be a big boy.  His body moved with a sense of purpose but curiosity at the same time, something about him reminded me of a velociraptor.  They put Baron back in his carrier and off I went to pass through customs.  During the truck ride I tried to coax Baron out of his crate with food, but he wouldn’t come out.  After a short interview we passed through customs and off we went.  During the ride home I left the carrier door open, and Baron finally poked his head out the door.  I gave him some chicken breast and the friendship started.   That night I put Baron in his carrier and tried to get some sleep.   But Baron howled and cried so I moved the carrier next to my bed and put my fingers in the cage door and that was good enough for Baron. 

The next two days we spent visiting my brothers and sisters to introduce everyone to the new family member.  Then the phone rang, it was U.S customs.  Officer XYZ says, “Mr.Fegley, the officer that interviewed you made a mistake when he looked over your paper work.  You must bring the dog back to be quarantined for 30 days.”  At first, I was shocked and wanted to tell the officer to come pry the dog from my cold dead hands.  Then I thought to myself, “Just tell him you’ll bring the dog back” and that’s what I did.  I said, “yes, I’ll bring the dog back tomorrow” knowing that in my mind they would never see Baron ever again.  I hung up the phone and prepared for the shell game, but they never came looking for my baby boy.  We tried to get Baron’s ears cropped but the doctor who was going to perform the surgery said she wouldn’t do it because I asked too many questions and was, I was overprotective of him “insert face palm here”.  But I honestly thought I was doing the right thing.     

For the next year Baron and I spent a lot of time obedience training & socializing.  I’ll never forget the day when I praised Baron for going potty outside.  The look on his face as he turned to me while praising him.  It was like a light bulb when on in his head.  Baron now knew what I was asking of him.   We adored Baron, I even saved every baby tooth I could find.   I had dogs as a kid and Baron was different.  I remember when I would pick them up, their back legs and body would get tense, not Baron.  When I would pick Baron up his back legs would go limp, dangle back and forth as I carried him, while he draped his head across the back of my shoulder.  I would bring Baron to work with me some days.  I was always impressed by Baron’s courage.  There would be lots of large, loud, machines in his environment but it never fazed him.   Baron would jump in and out of people’s wheel barrels when he wanted to go for a ride.  When we dug holes with shovel’s he would come to the area we were working in and dig a hole himself, everyone would laugh and Baron would just stare at us with the expression of, “what?  Isn’t this what you wanted me to do”?   

It wasn’t a good idea to leave anything valuable laying around as Baron was mischievous as a pup.    I left a few hundred-dollar bills on a low table one day. If you’re looking for a paper shredder, I had one!  Baron never trusted strangers, you had to earn his trust, to get into his circle of trust.  But oddly enough Baron accepted anyone who brought a dog with them.  Strangers or acquaintances never knew the soft side of Baron but he was the sweetest boy ever, he truly loved and protected his people.  Baron loved the park, it was a daily, evening trip for him.  Baron was able to run around off leash with all his dog friends, of whom he had many.  Exploring all the smells and being able to run free.  On one of our first trips to the dog park we met a woman who had three Manchester’s with her, imagine that!  My entire life I never saw a Manchester, here we are with Baron, and we meet three!  We became friends and Baron would go on play dates with his new Manchester friends.   We even took a trip to meet this woman’s sister who also had two Manchester’s!  I never realized just how BIG Baron was until he was side by side with another Manchester. 

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I also noticed Baron’s eyes were a different color than the rest of Manchester’s.  Baron’s eyes were the color of honey, and they gave off a striking appearance against his black color and the deep bronze color of his snout.  Baron’s head piece was beautiful, it was the perfect shape of a long wedge, like a wood splitting nail.  His eyes were not round, they were the shape of almonds, and he could see right through you with his 1,000-mile stare.  The bronze marking on his butt was V shaped not round and his tail covered it perfectly.  Baron was so strong, agile and fast.  When we started training Baron with toys he would display some pretty amazing things.  On his vertical jump, his mouth could grab things six feet in the air from a two-step jump.  There was another thing I noticed about Baron; it seemed like he had feelings.  On two separate occasions he was verbally corrected by another dog, Baron left the pack, went off on his own, sat and sulked.  I cried inside for him both times.   I immediately went over, picked up him, and cheered him back up again.  Baron was just trying to have fun, he could have retaliated but he didn’t, when it came to other dogs, he just wanted to play and be their friends.    

Fast forward one year and Baron was 2 years old.  It was a beautiful spring day.  Baron was at his day care when somehow, he got out of the yard.  I was at work, I got a phone call, it was the local veterinarian’s office.  They told me Baron had been hit by a car and I needed to come to the office right away.  I never really got the details on how Baron was taken to the hospital that day.  I heard stories of off duty EMT’s stopping to put a tourniquet on Baron and stopping the bleeding.     I rushed to the office, and they directed me to the room Baron was in.  I’ll never forget walking into the room that day.  There were assistants and the doctor around Baron.   The moment Baron saw me walk in the room; the room filled with the loud sound of his tail hitting the metal table that he was laying on.  The sound of the assistant’s voices saying, “Daddy’s here”!  Looking back at it I think to myself.  Here is this dog, his leg is mangled, his other leg is broken with a bad flesh wound, and he’s lost a ton of blood.  But what does he do when I walk in the room?  He wags his tail like nothing is wrong. 

Baron was taken to the UPenn where his surgeries took place.  We would visit Baron every day and stay with him as long as we were allowed to stay with him.  Baron’s left shoulder was removed, and his right leg put in an external fixator.  This was a traumatic experience for Baron.  The first few days I witnessed how panic stricken he was.  I wondered what he was thinking.  Did he think I allowed this to happen to him?  Did he think I left him in this strange place?  But in the end, oddly enough, it was Baron who first moved on from this horrible experience.   It was his owners who carried the mental scars from that day.  Hearing the stories about how my baby had enough strength to stumble onto the median and collapse there, to avoid being hit by another car.  Visualizing that in my head, even though I wasn’t there, destroyed me inside.   Baron taught me many lessons from that tragedy.  I used to work 12-hour days but after the accident I stopped.  I realized that the work was always going to be there, and the extra hour and a half just wasn’t important in the grand scheme of things, being there for him was.  Baron taught me to be stronger when faced with adversity.   Watching him recover from his injuries, there was nothing but the will to survive, nothing but strength and courage.  

Baron was placed in the ICU, we asked the doctors every day when we could take him home.  Finally, the doctors said it was best for Baron to go home with his family to heal, it was best for him to be with the people that loved him.  Baron needed 24-hour supervision during his recovery and for about two weeks he had to go back to the hospital every day for bandage changes.  With the help of family, Baron was supervised every day for the next ten months.  One day while watching Baron recover, I looked at him sleeping on his bed.  At that moment I promised Baron that I would never ever let anything happen to him again.  That I would be there to see him through the rest of his life.   At the time I smoked cigarettes.  For years parents, siblings, friends would tell me to stop smoking, I never did.  It was at that moment, sitting there looking at this brave dog, that I quit smoking forever.  Baron gave me another lease on life by being the reason I quit smoking, my love for this dog.  Ten months later Baron was given a clean bill of health.   We started to ease him back into being a dog again.  Soon enough Baron was back to his old self again.  Everywhere Baron went, he became the conversation.   People would stop and ask what his story was.  There was also a hidden benefit of owning Baron.  Baron was a complete chick magnet!  The women just melted. 

I promised Baron one other thing.  That I would get him a big yard to play in.  In 2012, Baron moved into his first house.  The first thing we did was replace the back door with a new door that had a doggy door.  Since Baron didn’t walk like most dog’s I got the biggest doggy door available.  While training Baron to use the door, I decided if I can fit through the door, he will just follow through.  Sure enough, on my first try, I squeezed through the door, and Baron came darting through.  The look of confidence on his face was hilarious.  As if he was saying, what’s next?  For the next twelve years this was Baron’s yard, this was Baron’s home.  As left for work every morning, Baron would follow me out the back door, lay down on his bed, and give me that thousand-mile stare as I left.  I always hated leaving him in the morning, but I took some solace in knowing that he had his freedom.  The doggy door did present some problems.   I came home one day, and Baron was not around me in the house.  I heard some shuffling in the bedroom.  Baron came out and presented me with a baby bunny in his mouth!  He dropped it, I went into the bedroom, and he had buried a family of bunnies in his favorite closet.    One morning it had rained all night the night before.  The back of the yard had a lot of standing water.  When we finished our walk there was a squirrel near the end of the yard.  I thought it was ok to take Baron off the leash because he would never catch the squirrel given how far away the squirrel was. I took off the leash and Baron darted across the yard after the squirrel.  However, when the squirrel went up the Crape Myrtle tree, the squirrel fell!  Baron picked up that squirrel and started thrashing it back and forth, water and mud splashing everywhere.

My heart sank as I ran across the yard to get Baron.  When I did, he let the squirrel go and it stumbled under the fence.   Mud everywhere, all over the fence, all over Baron, and he had the most crazed look in his eyes.  Baron was in a zone that I had never seen him in before.  I had to get to work but Baron was a muddy mess, I took him inside and gave him a quick bath. The entire experience gave me a few more gray hairs lol.   Baron loved sitting on his porch, watching over the landscape, the sound of birds chirping and flying from crape myrtle to crape myrtle.  He loved to lie in the sun, even if the temperatures were 40 degrees and there was snow on the ground, if the sun was out, he was out there.  Baron loved his ball, every day we would throw the ball around, he was relentless, intense, and a great retriever. 

Over the years we took Baron everywhere, hiking, beaches, snow resorts, boating, he loved an adventure.    One thing that most dogs can never say they did was witness a Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl Parade and Baron did.

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I swear Baron loved the camera, he would look right into the lens. Baron loved his blankets and pillows. 

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He would wrap himself up in Berkshire blankets like he was a sushi roll.  When people would come over, they’d ask, “where’s Baron?” and I’d show them where he was.  They would be shocked and say, “Can he breathe in there?” Yes, he can, he just loves his blankets.

Baron was always there for me.  For close to 17 years he was always there at the fence or on the porch waiting for me to come home from work.  Through Covid, he was there every day when I came home from work.  Baron was all I had; he didn’t care about anything except that I was there with him.  When we would sleep, he would stare at me until I lifted the blanket.  When I did, he would plop himself down next to me, drape his head across my chest, and let out the biggest sigh you’ve ever heard.  It was if he was saying, I’m content now.  Baron could sleep!  I would get out of bed at 6 am, I’d have to drag him out of bed for his morning walk!  I would grab Baron like a tied-up calf and drag him across the bed, he wouldn’t even flinch lol.    If I was staying home, he wouldn’t stroll out of bed until 11:30 am, ah the life.  Baron had the bladder of an Elephant!  When he would go, it would last forever! I’d actually stand there and crack jokes while he was going, “that’s a mighty fine bladder you have there Baron!” 

As Baron turned 12 or 13 years old, he came up limping after one of our ball sessions.  The doctors told me it was time to put the ball down for good because it could have a negative impact on Baron’s joints and arthritis.  So, we would take walks every day after work to get Baron his exercise.  As he got even older, he could not navigate the back steps anymore.  So, we built him a freedom ramp.  I called I the freedom ramp because it gave Baron the freedom to move about the property whenever he wanted, for whatever reason, I felt as if Baron’s everyday freedom attributed to his longevity, being able to come and go as he pleased.  Want to go out and sunbathe?  You can do that! Want to go take a nap in the air conditioning while being wrapped up in your blankets?  You can do that!  Want to go out in the yard and hunt rabbits?  You can do that!  He was in control of whatever he wanted to do. 

When Baron was close to 16 years old, he developed a mass on his neck.  I took him to the doctors, and they said it was a thyroid mass.  It needed to be surgically removed or Baron would not survive.  I tried to process getting the surgery done on Baron, but I couldn’t imagine putting him through such an invasive surgery at the age of 16.   But I had to do something, so I scheduled the surgery.  On the day of the surgery, the doctors performed a CT scan which revealed Baron had Cancer on his heart, which had spread to his lungs.  The doctors called me and gave me the bad news, there was no reason to perform the surgery as it would not have a positive effect for Baron’s life span.  Baron was given back to me and was given at home hospice status.  In his final year I devoted everything to loving him even more and making sure he was comfortable.  Baron was such a sweet boy in his elder years, he would call out to me when he needed something, and I was there.  In March of 2024, I was walking Baron when a police car pulled up next to me.  The officer put his window down and said, “excuse me, was your dog hit by a vehicle 15 years ago on route 53”?  I told him yes, that was Baron.  Here it turns out that this brave officer saved Baron’s life 15 years ago and I had never met him.  He was the first officer on the scene, he saw Baron on the median, bravely picked up Baron and rushed him to the hospital.  My eyes filled up with tears and I thanked him from the bottom of my heart, for saving my little baby boy..  I will be forever grateful for his bravery and quick decision making.  We had come full circle.     

I carried Baron everywhere for the final three months.  I took him to work every day.  People in the neighborhoods where we were working would stop and ask, “is that your dog”? or “that’s the most well-behaved dog I’ve ever seen in my life” lol.  Jokingly I would respond with, “you should have met him when he was 3”! I promised Baron when the time came that I would let him go in the comfort of his own home, but it didn’t work out like that.  On April 25^th, I  had to rush him to the hospital at 3 am.  My eyes filled with tears, trying to be strong for him, I put a pillow in the back seat of the truck, wrapped him in a Berkshire blanket, laid him down, and we drove to the hospital.  Baron passed away at 6am that morning.  I promised myself that I would take Baron’s body to be cremated when he passed.  I didn’t want anyone to mishandle this beautiful soul that I loved so much.  I wanted him to rest in peace with dignity.  I wrapped Baron back up in the Berkshire blanket, laid his head down on the pillow in the back seat and took my beautiful baby boy to be laid to rest,  I couldn’t even speak.  I miss him dearly every day and he’ll never be forgotten.  

Eulogy

Ladies and Gentlemen,

We gather here today to celebrate the life of Baron, an extraordinary Manchester terrier who blessed our lives with his presence for nearly 17 years. Baron passed away on April 25th, 2024, just shy of his 17th birthday, leaving behind a legacy of loyalty, bravery, and love that will forever be etched in our hearts. This is his story, a tribute to the most amazing friend and companion one could ever hope for.

Baron's journey began in August 2007, when he was just a four-month-old puppy. I picked him up from Cargo City at the Philadelphia Airport, a small bundle of curiosity and energy. His long legs, big feet, and ears gave him an almost otherworldly presence, moving with a purpose and curiosity that reminded me of a tiny velociraptor. From that moment, I knew Baron was special.

Our first night together, Baron cried until I moved his carrier next to my bed, and he settled down only when I placed my fingers through the cage door. This was the beginning of a deep bond, one that saw us through countless adventures and challenges. When customs made a mistake with his paperwork and demanded he be quarantined, I made a silent vow that they would never see my baby boy again. Baron was here to stay.

Over the next year, Baron and I dedicated ourselves to training and socializing. I'll never forget the day he finally understood my praise for going potty outside. The light in his eyes, the joy he felt at pleasing me, it was as if a new world had opened up for him. Baron was different from any other dog I'd known. He was always relaxed when I picked him up, his back legs dangling and his head resting on my shoulder, a sign of the deep trust and love we shared.

Baron came to work with me, fearless in the face of loud machines and large crowds. His playful spirit and bravery were a source of joy and laughter for everyone. He would jump in and out of wheelbarrows, dig holes alongside us, and shred anything left within his reach, including a few hundred-dollar bills. Baron was mischievous, but his charm was undeniable.

Our daily trips to the dog park were a highlight, where Baron ran freely with his friends. Meeting another Manchester terrier for the first time and realizing how unique he was only reinforced the special place he held in my life. His honey-colored eyes, striking against his black coat and bronze snout, and his perfectly shaped head gave him a regal appearance that turned heads wherever we went.

Baron’s life was not without trials. When he was two years old, he was hit by a car, suffering severe injuries. Yet, even in pain, he wagged his tail upon seeing me, his spirit unbroken. His strength and determination during his recovery were a testament to his character. He taught me to cherish every moment and showed me the true meaning of resilience and courage.

Baron's accident changed my life in many ways. I stopped working long hours to spend more time with him, realizing that being there for him was more important than anything else. His recovery was slow, but his will to live and his uncomplaining nature were inspiring. Baron even helped me quit smoking, giving me a new lease on life.

As the years went by, Baron continued to be a source of joy and companionship. He moved with me to a new home with a big yard, fulfilling a promise I made to him. He adapted to a doggy door, ensuring he had the freedom he deserved. His adventures, whether chasing squirrels or sunbathing on the porch, were a constant reminder of his zest for life.

In his later years, Baron faced new challenges with grace. A thyroid mass led to a diagnosis of cancer, but Baron remained a sweet, loving companion. I dedicated myself to making his final days as comfortable as possible. Carrying him, taking him to work, and ensuring he was always surrounded by love.

Baron passed away peacefully, wrapped in a Berkshire blanket, his favorite comfort. I took him to be laid to rest, ensuring his dignity remained intact. He may be gone, but his spirit, his lessons, and the love he gave will never be forgotten.

Baron was not just a dog; he was a loyal friend, a brave soul, and a beloved family member. His memory will live on in the countless hearts he touched and in the stories we share. Thank you, Baron, for the joy, love, and unwavering loyalty you brought into our lives. You will be missed every day, but your spirit will always be with us.

Rest in peace, my beautiful boy. You will never be forgotten.