Goodbye Old Friend

You already know the sad news. Our Friend Badger is being laid to rest, probably as I type this. Since I do not have a digital photo of Badg, I would like to memorialize him with a few stories...
Once, when our Kirchenbauer clan was over for Sunday dinner (in days of yore), Badger was going nuts inside the back room. We were playing volleyball. Lynn was there with Joe, John, Jeanne and I. I'm not sure if Glenn was living at home then. So he wanted to come join in the fun, so I got him on a leash and attempted to bring him out into the backyard. Well that was fine until we got off the deck and he actually saw everyone. He turned on the jets and I was horizontal, I mean like George Jetson when Astro was in a hurry. That seemed to last for several seconds although I'm quite sure that is a distortion. Anyway, I landed hard on my right side in the grass (as I had been holding his leash with my right hand, looped around my wrist which is a dumb thing to do with a powerful dog). So I was hurting but Badger had forgotten all about me when he saw his friend John. So he was still tearing after all of them (who were laughing hard at this point) and Joe was calling,"come on, come here Badger!" until I managed to groan, "Joe... stop it... I'm hurt". I was being dragged along.
A similar story is the one about Dad being dragged down the wheelchair ramp and slamming head first into the side of Jeanne's car (this was because Jeanne was visiting from S. Ohio and Badger was very excited).
As a gaurd dog, he tackled Jeane once in the wee hours when she returned from Denny's and showered around 4:00am. With her scent being somewhat diluted from the shower I guess he didn't know at first who was walking around in the middle of the night. He stood on top of her chest until he realized his mistake.
I always felt safer knowing he was there watching over my aging parents and my tiny children.
Goodbye Old Boy.