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When your dog dies

Discussion in 'Anything goes' started by zimbabwe, Jun 16, 2009.

  1. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    Thanks.
    Like kids, I think you should find some "alone" time with your dogs if you have multiples. Breakfast was always my time with Zinger. While everyone snoozed, we'd get up and eat and solve the problems of the world. Or just hang out and share sandwiches or scrambled eggs. She liked hers with cheese.
     
  2. shockey

    shockey Active Member

    all i've got is: :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'(

    what a great place this is.
     
  3. imjustagirl

    imjustagirl Active Member

    I hadn't read this thread since posting, because these threads always get to me.

    Bless all of you. Whenever you think there's no way everyone could share the same thing, we've seemingly all loved and lost an animal. And it's wrecked damn near all of us in one way or another.

    Bless you all.
     
  4. MrBSquared

    MrBSquared Member

    “Mac” was a Scottish terrier. He was every bit a terrier. We got him as a puppy — paid a lot more than a sportswriter at a small paper should — because my kids fell in love with him the minute they saw him.

    Then we brought him home and he became a part of our lives. He became family.

    And he stole my heart.

    I used to work a lot of late, late nights. Football Friday Nights. And, as a puppy, he would sleep on the top corner of the sofa, right by the front door, until I came home. He would not go to sleep again until we spent time on the sofa together, usually him asleep on my chest when we finally went to bed.

    He loved to “patrol” his backyard — it was his kingdom — and would go flying out the back door every morning to make sure everything was in order in his realm.

    Toward the end, he became filled with tumors. He couldn’t eat — often wouldn’t — and when he did, he couldn’t keep it down. We spent a fortune trying to help him, but it was time.

    The morning we took him to the vet, I was home alone with him. I took him out for a final “patrol” but he didn’t have it in him. He walked to the corner of the patio, facing the wind, and sat and sniffed. I sat down next to him, and he leaned on me and let out a heavy sigh.

    A dusty, dusty day it was.

    I was in the room. I was brave for as long as I could be, as long as he was with us. And when the life left his eyes, I stopped being brave.

    I hate that memory. I hate that scene — it haunts me to this day, nearly a decade later. But I had to be there. I could not let him go alone, with strangers. I owed him that, if for nothing more than all those nights he was there waiting for me.

    You love your pets because they love you, unconditionally. They do. And they say it — and show it — every day. I am not embarrassed to say that. And, now, I have a great dog, Jake, who shows me it every day. And, every day when we go for a walk, I get his leash from a table where an iron sculpture of a Scotty sits. It’s “Jake’s big brother” and he knows what I’m saying when I tell him it’s time to go see “Mac” and go for a walk.

    I feel for your loss. It is real. As real as any loss of someone we love in our life.
     
  5. shockey

    shockey Active Member

    damn you!!! here i go again. :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'( :'(
     
  6. zimbabwe

    zimbabwe Active Member

    Indeed.

    I just had to step outside the office.

    It happened before. It will happen again. (I had some weird moments lifting weights and playing hoops the last three days, but most of those dudes have dogs, so they understand.)
     
  7. Moderator1

    Moderator1 Moderator Staff Member

    Those moments will occur less frequently. First few days post Zinger, I'd get up and shut the door 2-3 times a day. My staff understood.
     
  8. imjustagirl

    imjustagirl Active Member

    Damn, BSquared, that's a hell of a post. Thank you for sharing.
     
  9. Jesus_Muscatel

    Jesus_Muscatel Well-Known Member

    Zimbabwe, I am really sorry to hear about your dog. And I am not at all surprised by the response it's generated.

    I had a dog named Duchess in the '80s. A great, great dog. Helped me through some really tough times, professionally.

    My parents had Duchess as she got older, and they had to deal with the heartbreak on a more personal level than me when it was time to put her down. She made it to 14 or 15. A sweet, funny dog. Never met a stranger.

    I hope to have another dog someday.
     
  10. KevinmH9

    KevinmH9 Active Member

    I'm not at all surprised by the number of responses on this thread, either. I feel disappointed, though. At my still young ago, I've never really had a pet I could call my own and cherish like many of you have and still do. I hope within the next year, I'll have my own place and a dog whom I can come home to and watch a movie with while resting an arm around him or her.
     
  11. I can definitely relate to your loss zimbabwe. My mom had to put both her dogs down last year. She had a Boston Terrier and one of her pups. I was more attached to the pup. I loved both of those dogs so much.

    My parents had went out of town with the dogs one weekend. Dolly hadn't been doing so well. My mom had to rush her to an emergency vet. They told her that it was in the best interest to put her down being that she wouldn't have made it much longer. It came as a complete shock. We had always expected other dog to go first. Catfish, the other dog, had parvo and heartworms that he had overcome.

    I must say that Catfish had one last grand adventure before my mom took him to the vet, though. My dad took him to this park camping for the weekend. The dog woke him at about 530 in the morning, barking. Apparently there was a cat out on the table. Well he ran after that damn cat like he was some young pup. Tried his hardest to get under the door in the storage shed to get that cat.

    I still half expect those dogs to greet me at the door every time I go to my parents house. Know that you are not alone, zim. I don't know what I'm going to do when I lose my cats.
     
  12. Tommy_Dreamer

    Tommy_Dreamer Well-Known Member

    Damn dust!
     
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