Posted on 07/13/2014 11:58:09 AM PDT by chessplayer
I Died Today. By Duke Roberts.
(Excerpt) Read more at buzzfeed.com ...
I read this earlier and was reduced to a sobbing mass.
I had to put down my old black lab last June. He was the last of my “elderly pack”. I had no idea that his passing would affect me so strongly. He wasn’t the first I had to put down in my life. Far from it.
I was so blessed to find a vet that would come to me. My regular vet wouldn’t come...and I have spent a boat load of money with him. I couldn’t load him and he couldn’t get in the truck himself.
Oddly, I haven’t been in a rush to get another dog. (I have NEVER been dogless) Maybe Jesse just had too big of an impact. Or maybe I’m just waiting for some little beggar to find me...which is what usually happens.
Why do you folks do this to me, can’t hardly even see the keyboard.
My old Jack (also a Black Lab/Newfoundland) is really getting up there in age (19), can’t hardly walk any more but he isn’t in any pain.
I know it will happen in a year or so, and I can’t hardly bear it. I’ll take him down to the creek tomorrow and we will go swimming, it’s easier on his hips and he loves it.
I will miss him so much when he has to go, but between now and then I will love him with all I got.
If there aren’t any dogs in heaven, it ain’t heaven and I ain’t goin!
I have this poem framed with a picture of the best dog I ever had, Wink the Greyhound. He’s been gone for years and nary a day goes by that I don’t shed a tear for him.
The Power of the Dog
There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.
Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie—
Perfect passsion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To risk your heart to a dog to tear.
When the fourteen years which Nature permits
Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
And the vet’s unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
Then you will find—it’s your own affair—
But ... you’ve given your heart to a dog to tear.
When the body that lived at your single will,
With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!)
When the spirit that answered your every mood
Is gone—wherever it goes—for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart to a dog to tear.
We’ve sorrow enough in the natural way,
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we’ve kept ‘em, the more do we grieve:
For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-term loan is as bad as a long—
So why in—Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?
Rudyard Kipling
I won’t go either, 5th MEB!! What kind of heaven would that be?
One of my favorite episodes of the Twilight Zone was the old man walking with his dog looking for heaven.
My brother did an autopsy on Hazel and found her body perfectly healthy with no sign or disease, poison or injury. His conclusion was that she had a stroke because her brain was the only place he didn’t look. She was under 10 years old, not over weight and she died suddenly.
What is hermangio sarcoma?
Screen’s all blurry! What’s up with that?
We got it. ;-)
I don’t know what that is...but I truly believe that sometimes it is just their time to go. :(
You weren’t in East Texas this week with Harry were ya?There was a pic in my local paper this week that really looked like him at the local library.
i GOT IT RIGHT AWAY...HA.
No Hairy and I were not in east Texas. On Sunday we did our therapy thing at the Forum and convalescent home on I-10 and 610.
My brother is a veterinarian and he called it a stroke, maybe he said that so I could understand bleeding in the brain. We had just lost our mother from a stroke.
Most “strokes” in dogs are not truly strokes.
Actual real strokes in dogs are very, very rare.
Maybe he used it as a catch-all term for these, which are fixable if the vet knows what they’re looking at.
http://www.petmd.com/blogs/thedailyvet/jlee/2011/may/do_dogs_get_strokes-11223
Beautiful poem!
He doesn’t look that old to me either, and due to heavier bandwidth usage than expected at her blog(s), further explanation was hard to find.
But finally I came across a comment that it wasn’t his mobility that was compromised, so much as his ability to find rest. The tumor kept on coming, spreading his ribs apart, causing pain and breathing problems when he would lie down. Poor fella.
I wish I could have given my last pet such a send-off party. But her kidneys were goners & took her appetite & love for life along with. Best I could do was NOT subject her to crate confinement ending at the vet’s.
That’s how we lost my beloved boxer, Princess. I’m still devastated 3 years later.
Well, Hairy has a body double doing therapy work at the library out here! But I see now the two guys spell their names differently. :)
I would send you a picture of Hairy except I have a new ipad and I haven’t figured out if I even have any pictures on it. :( Freep mail me your address and I will snail mail you his picture if you want one. Hairy is pretty special, dog of the year ya know! :)
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