Buddy, you performed you one task very...VERY well. Your former (and your current) Master is very pleased.
Good boy, Buddy!
Good boy.
Posted on 05/21/2007 7:23:48 PM PDT by uglybiker
I apoligize in advance for being so long winded, but I felt the need to share.
5:00am. I'm up and stumbling around the house like I usually do at this time of morning getting ready for work. Keys?...check. Smokes?...check. Lighter?...check. Monster mug o' coffee?...check.
Okay. I've got all the important stuff covered. I walk to the back door with a quick stop at the pantry to pull out a dog cookie. I walk out the door and something is missing. Normally, at the bottom of the steps, is a largish, wooly, mixed-breed dog. His name is Buddy. During the warmer part of the year (which we have alot of here in Arizona), he likes to sleep out in the yard where the ground is cooler. Normally he can hear me bumbling around the house in the morning, so he comes to the back steps to wait for me to come out. He always knew that 'Daddy' would give him some well-deserved attention and a cookie before he left. That was the daily ritual and I did my best to keep my part of the bargain.
He'd been getting along in years and, every once in awhile, I guess he'd sleep so soundly that he wouldn't hear me, and I'd find him still asleep in the yard right at the back corner of the house. He was there this morning, but when I called him, he didn't move. His body was still warm, his limbs were still limber, but my friend was gone.
And a hole opened in my heart.
No more will I see that wagging tail, those perked ears and that goofy dog grin as he lays with his paws crossed --always right over left-- just behind the back gate. Where he would stay almost motionless until the gate is actually open and "OHBYOHBOYOHBOY! DADDY'S HOME!!"
No more when I open the back door will he squirt in and play Kentucky Derby through the house with the cat. First one leading, then the other.
No more in the spring when the mulberrys flower and all the fuzzy bits fall to the ground and seemingly every #%&$%$# on gets stuck in his fur when he tries to come in the house...
No more will he lay his head on my knee and look up at me with those watery eyes and that disarming 'goofy dog grin' that he had perfected so well. That look said he knew who his master was. And that was all that mattered.....and would Master please give him a cookie? ;-)
Flashback to ten years ago.
November '97. I had recently moved to Arizona and was renting a room from my folks while I was getting myself established. I had just received a sizeable promotion at work and had saved up enough to put a down payment on a house. I was finally starting to move up in the world.
I got to work to pull a weekend shift when the man at the front gate ask me:"You know anybody who wants a dog? He's been wandering around here for two days. I felt sorry for him, so I gave him a frozen waffle I was going to have for breakfast. He likes me now. I call him 'Buddy'." My father worked at the same place at the time and, before I knew it, my parents had driven down, coaxed him into their car and brought him home. (My family has a failing when it comes to stray critters. We all have a couple.)It took the better part of a day to get him to come up to me. But when he figured out I was okay, he wasn't going anywhere. We debated on taking him to the local animal shelter, but I figured that since he was so skiddish, nobody would take him. So, when the paperwork on my house cleared a couple of weeks later, he came home with me.
He still had alot of puppy in him, so there were some problems at first. My utility trailer got stripped of all its wires, the power lead to my AC was pulled off, about two hundred holes showed up in my 'new' backyard, and I got notices stuck on my front door from animal control complaining about a barking dog. But he eventually settled down and even made up with the neighbors. One even told me that she didn't mind him barking so much because "he's not only watching your yard, he's watching mine, too!" Before long, he had truly lived up to his name. What had been some uncaring person's cast off, quickly became my closest and truest friend.
Buddy never was a big fan of the ugly bike. He didn't mind the noise, he just knew that whenever he saw me loading stuff on it, I was going somewhere and wasn't taking him.
Time rolled on. I got another promotion at work, my Father retired and my parents moved to eastern Texas. My folks always seeming to need something either hauled to them or hauled back, a couple times a year I would load up the truck and head east. Me at the wheel and Buddy behind the drivers seat with his head on the console. We took this trip enough times that we had our own scheduled stops. First: the New Mexico Welcome center on I-40. Second: The Love's truckstop west of Amarillo. Third: just outside of Witchita Falls and last: a little picnic area on Highway 82 not far from Paris, Tx.
As he got older, he developed hip displasia and got to where he couldn't climb in the truck. So I whipped up a small foldable ramp so he could walk in. He was always ready to go somewhere.
Flash back to the present.
By now, I was running late for work, so I moved Buddy from the yard and put him in the breezeway next to his dog box. My supervisor was understanding. All guys know what if feels like when you lose your dog. Also my work load was light, so I was able to leave early to take care of the business of what to do with this, that which is all that is left of my best friend.
The soil in this part of Arizona is composed mostly of rock, clay and calichi. I would almost have to rent a jackhammer to dig a proper grave. But my local veterenarian offers a cremation servce. It's not cheap, but I'm not complaining. In a couple of weeks, I will receive a small box of ashes that will be placed where I have a spot prepared under my bedroom window next to a cat who was also a very true friend.
When I got to the vet office, they had me pull around back where two assistants laid out a sling, gently rolled him into it and together (he weighed almost 100 pounds) we carried him inside to the last place I would see him.
I turned around to go and remembered somethng. I knelt down and removed the collar that I had put on him a long, long time ago. He didn't need it anymore.
I was no longer his Master.
There was a thread here the other day that posed the question about whether our pets go to heaven. I didn't read the whole thing, but I seem to remember a poster saying that there is a reason animals are rarely mentioned in Scripture. The Bible was written for mankind. Animals don't need a guide on how to live their lives.It is very scant on details about what happens to animals when they pass on. So anything I can add would be strictly my opinion. You can take it for what it's worth.
And, in my opinion, I believe that our pets are a physical manifestation of our Creator's love for us.
They are sent to us to perform one task, and one task only. And that is to serve their masters.
In doing so, they are also a reminder to their masters that they too have one task. And that is to serve Our Lord and Master.
The sheer exuberence at which they go about their one task is a reminder of how we should go about ours.
And as their lives are but a few short years, they remind us that, as their physical bodies must return to the earth whence they came, so too shall be our fate. And we should make the best of the short time we have been blessed with.
I cannot say for sure that our pets go to Heaven. I will only say that if the hereafter is supposed to be paradise, that paradise would be a bleak place indeed if my best friend is not there to share it with me.
As I type this, his collar is sitting on my desck by my keyboard. I look around the room and I see over in one corner, a very well-chewed rope toy. In another corner is the knot off a rawhide bone next to an old blue blanket he would lie on when he would come inside. I'm not sure what to do with them yet. Do I throw them out or save them for the next dog? I say next for it seems to be my lot that when one of my animals passes, a short time later another one shows up needing a home.
But I will always have a very special place for a largish, wooly dog with a 'goofy dog grin'.
And you are right, God did place animals on Earth for a purpose. Horses, dogs, cats, and the like were put here to give us company. Unfortunately, their time here on Earth is brief and that causes us to mourn so much when they depart.
I think you are wrong though about the Bible. I recently went through a book that lists the many references in the Bible about our companion animals. Unfortunately, not being terribly familiar with the Bible, I could not follow it. Suffice it to say that it contains many, many references to animals having an afterlife.
I have a new book which I think I can understand, though. It's titled "Animals and the Afterlife: True Stories of our Best Friends' Journey Beyond Death" by Kim Sheridan. It's a big book (410 pages) but that's what I wanted.
Again, I am so sorry to learn of the passing of Buddy. I too lost my friend of 16 years last year and I know the hurt that you are feeling.
OP
You gave him a wonderful home and you've got a whole lot of love in you left.
So not today, but in the future, you can and should adopt another little Buddy who needs you as much as he did. I've a feeling that's what HE would want..for you and some poor unloved dog out there, who would be luckiest dog in Arizona to have you for his own..
sw
I am happy that Buddy found his way into your life and you had wonderful times together.
Take Care,
deadhead
To each and every one of you, thank you.Your condolences have done much to ease the heaviness I have felt since yesterday morning.
This is by no means the first time I've gone through this, and certainly will not be the last. Although this is the first time I have been moved to write about it. It never seems to get any easier. But any grief I feel now pales in comparisom to the joy I felt while for the years my best friend was with me. I also have three feline best friends here to keep me company. They miss him, too. One is seventeen now and I have to prepare myself for when her time comes. If there is one grain of truth to the Rainbow Bridge story, when my time comes, I'm gonna get mobbed! All the more reason to try and make it there.
I knew y'all would understand. ;-)
See the post right after yours. ;-)
You’re welcome, and thanks again for sharing your dog’s life with us.
Same here.
Thanks for writing uglybiker. I’m glad you have other pets, I believe it helps.
We love them and lose them and it hurts for a long while, I too am hoping we ‘see them again’. Regards.
Hang tight bud.
Was thinking about how you were holding up earlier today.
My wife and I adopted two wonderful dogs, if you want the name of the organizations for future reference, please contact me via Freepmail.One was a pup of a woman breeding who snapped and decided she couldn't handle another litter.
The other was from a family who lost their home in Rita and dropped her off at a Lab rescue shelter because they couldn't take her :-(
They are great dogs that would have been put down otherwise.
Take care, I felt so bad for you, brought tears to me eyes thinking of my previous losses
Dog are so very special.
i haven’t had a pet die since i was a teenager, so i am dreading it and stories like your’s just break my heart. I had a jack russell terrier who bit the little girl across the street and so i had to get rid of him, that was about 5-6 years back. even though it was giving him to someone that i knew and trusted, i bawled my head off for about a week or two. I currently have two cavalier king charles spaniels, a 4 year old and an 8 mo. old and i can’t even envision life without them, but i know, like you, it will happen to me too.
dogs are special and so are dogpeople. you always know that dogpeople will understand these feelings and be empathetic. i personally feel there is something very wrong with people who don’t like dogs : )
Sucks.
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 passion and worship fed By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head. Nevertheless it is hardly fair To risk your heart for 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 hat 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-time 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?
Lovely post. Just picture them in a few weeks!! Fun, fun, fun!
Alright, I have to sign off, if my wife comes in here I'll have to make up a story about my allergies.
Prayers for you and Buddy.
All Dogs Go To Heaven
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