Oh _ref_, so many dead dog poems. I don't know where they start, probably in one of the odes of Horace. The earliest one I know of is by the great Victorian Poet, Matthew Arnold, who wrote this in 1887, about his dog Kaiser. It's called Kaiser Dead - And then there's the poem that actor Jimmy Stewart read on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show in 1981. What, Kaiser dead? The heavy news
[some lines about the muse] Kai's bracelet tail, Kai's busy feet,
Were known to all the village-street.
What, poor Kai dead?" say all I meet;
"A loss indeed!" Six years ago I brought him down,
A baby dog, from London town;
Round his small throat of black and brown
A ribbon blue,
And vouch'd by glorious renown
A dachshound true.
And so it goes, on and on, for 13 dog-filled stanzas. His mother, most majestic dame,
Of blood-unmix'd, from Potsdam° came;
And Kaiser's race we deem'd the same—
No lineage higher.
And so he bore the imperial name.
But ah, his sire!