Getting the Nod From Himself

When Etcetera was born in 1167 he was just another mongrel pup. Unlike his mother and siblings he escaped death by drowning at the hands of a cruel farmer. The Abbott of Killeedy Abbey found him exhausted on a ditch and claimed him as his pet. While out for his constitutional on the morning of May eve, 1169, he innocently ingested an elixir that changed his existential status to that of an immortal dog. For eight hundred and fifty years, he has overcome death by ingesting the same elixir once every ten years. Now, however, a crisis has befallen Etcetera. The European Union has decided to ban one of the ingredients used to keep him alive. The impending ban is having the effect of placing him, as he says, on 'Death Row'. He feels that telling his story is his only hope. Although capable of total recall, he has 'to be selective, giving time and space to those particular decades when the lives lived of the dogs that I once was might be of most interest to posterity.'