In memory of Sheinkin/Duby

Sheinkin/Duby died because he never learned to face the fact that he was a small dog.

Sheinkin was a new addition to the Fish Family; he's only adapted us a few months ago. How and Why exactly he did that is not known, and he never really told us, but the common assumption is that he was a reincarnation of a dog Mom Fish had when she was young, named Duby. A supporting fact is that he answered both names (and also, "Bingo", "Lassy", "Charles", "Wilhelm the second", "Shazbak", and most other names). However none of the Fishes displayed any objection to adding another dog to the family, though Kawaii was not too excited about the idea. As for the Family's older dog, polly, he probably never noticed the change, as he is blind, senile, and can't hear too well, either.

Sheinkin proved himself to be a model dog, liked to take rides on Blue's bike, and was particularly excellent at being happy whenever Red came back from the army. However, he had one major fault; he was small, brown, furry and cute, while his self-image seemed to be of a huge, red-eyed, bloodthirsty rotweiler. As such, he took it on himself to defend The Fish Lair from all kinds of invaders, and whenever he spotted a non-fish acting as if he'd like to come by, he'd start revealing his teeth and barking so pathetically, that the mentioned non-fish would turn around and run away screaming out of simple pity, not wanting to crash the poor dog's ego (not to mention skull).

The trouble began, as always, in the springtime. The four-legged creatures of Destination were not fooled by the cold and the rain; they sensed in their all-knowing earthquake-predicting senses, that no matter what the sky said, it was spring, time for breeding like maniacs. The dogs were claiming their territory with special care, and the bitches enjoyed the sudden fuss around them and sat in their windows, idly watching the fierce fights that those macho idiot males were conducting down below.

Polly, who had recently celebrated his BarMitzva (91 in dog years), was far too old to participate in the celebrations and spent his time sitting by the metaphorical fire and telling tales of how things were when he was young; the young and enthusiastic Duby, on the other hand, took his share of the general mayhem with pleasure, and fought fiercely for the hand of some of the neighbourhood's fairest bitches. And that's where he encountered his doom; or, namely, Bronto.

Bronto was a bronthosaurus with a problem. he never learned to face the fact that he was a very big prehistoric animal. Of course, the calm and cozy village of Destination was not exactly a prehistoric tropical jungle, and maybe that's what caused his mistake. Whatever the reason, Bronto thought and acted like a small cute animal; The Nextdoor family who owned him had to keep him tied with a strong chain, when it was discovered that whenever he spotted a person of any kind - preferably kids - he'd run toward them joyfully, his mouth open wide and his tongue extended so amusingly, that the mentioned humans would turn around and run away screaming out of simple fear for their lives.

Duby and Bronto met each other for a match in the scheduled Destination Dogs tournament, which was so tightly scheduled that it could seem for a side-viewer that the dogs were just jumping each other with no order at all. It was probably a fairly calm match, or there was some kind of a sexual mixup, because it was reported by witnesses that they tried to bite each other at the back of the neck. Bronto had a back-of-neck twenty six meters long, but Duby couldn't quite reach it; when Bronto bit Duby in his turn, he missed a bit, and snapped his spine.

It's not that funny, really. Everyone were so sad about the little dog's death they didn't even have to consider the moral.