R.I.P. My dog Boy

[JJ80]

Sorry to hear about that!

[Trevor]

I was going into the office late today, so I was still laying in bed when my wife had left for work. She came back into the house and told me Boy was laying at the end of our driveway not moving.  I got on some pants and went out with the flashlight and sure enough  he was dead.  He apparently had been hit by a car but there were no obvious wounds.  It looked like our other dog Jersey stayed by him since he died.

I was going to bury him in the woods in back of the house, but the ground where I live is just about all rock.  He weighed about 65lbs, so figured there was no way I could dig a hole big enough for him. I called our vet and they said they cremated dogs, so I took him there.

Boy was a sweet dog, one of the ladies at the vets office was heartbroken that he had died.  He was at the vet at least 2 or 3 times a year. He was always getting beat up, snake bit, or catching some fungus. We called him our problem child.

I called him the happy idiot, because he seemed oblivious to the world.  He would always run up the driveway smiling and barking when we came home.  Nothing existed to him but milk bones and getting petted.

We got him in a round about way. Our elderly neighbor took him in as a stray and he was her constant companion when she could still get outside.  When she got ill we took over his care and when she died we told her children that we would keep him, since he stayed at our place all the time anyway.

He was a strange looking dog. First time I took him to the vet I asked what he thought he was and  he said definitely had some Catahoula in him, but who knows what the rest of him was.   He's the only dog I ever saw with gold eyes.  He's also the only dog I ever saw that sat flat on his butt like a person.

I guess I did my far share of griping about him (especially the vet bills), but I sure am going to miss that smilin' face when I come home everyday.

Boy as his smilin' self.

Here he is with his pal Jersey, I guess she watched over him until my wife found him.

Sorry to hear that, Trek. Warm hugs, my friend.

At least he had you to look after him: I don't think I'm wrong in saying (like Ed did) that he had a great pal in you. 

[trekgeezer]

How did your dogs end up with the names Boy and Jersey?

When Mrs. Allen, our elderly neighbor, took Boy in she just started calling him that and it stuck.

Jersey's is a little weirder.  Her mother is actually a black Labrador and the people who had her were surprised by her appearance and the lady said she reminded her of a Jersey cow.

Thanks guys for all the good wishes.

[Andrew]

Losing a pet is always hard.  It is also something we all have to experience, because their lives are shorter than ours. 

I still remember when my dog, Zeus, passed away.  My plan for this Christmas is to get a dog for the family.  All the children will cry one day when the dog passes on, but there will be a lot of good times before then.  Those good times are what makes it worth the grief.  They are why we grieve.

[AndyC]

I still remember when my dog, Zeus, passed away.  My plan for this Christmas is to get a dog for the family.  All the children will cry one day when the dog passes on, but there will be a lot of good times before then.  Those good times are what makes it worth the grief.  They are why we grieve.

That's the big downside of dogs, a relatively short lifespan. But as George Carlin said, "Life is a series of dogs."

Our dogs were already on the downside of middle age when we had our daughter. Sadly, the older of the two (a dog with temperament problems) did not like our daughter from the start, and in spite of our best training efforts, became openly hostile by the time she was crawling. Callie was about ten at the time, with some health problems that defied diagnosis and enough anxiety that she wouldn't have adjusted well to a new home. So, after weeks of debating what to do, callie finally got a morning of sausage for breakfast, swimming, frisbee (which she normally couldn't do anymore because of bad joints), followed by a one-way drive to the vet.

Briar, the younger of the dogs, turned ten this year. He and my daughter are finally figuring out how to play together, and she's taken to hugging and kissing him and feeding him treats from the dinner table. But he's slowed down considerably of late, and his face is looking pretty white. I expect his time will come when my daughter is maybe five or six. I'll probably be sadder than anyone, since I'm closest to Briar. He's currently recovering from a bad bout of pancreatitis which has put this on my mind this week.

We've talked about how nice it would have been to have a puppy that would grow with her and be around into her teens, but a gentle, faithful, quiet old dog has advantages as well.

[Allhallowsday]

Sad news, Trek.  The dogs run loose in your neighborhood?  Where I am, it would not be a good idea (which doesn't mean my Rodney the beagle doesn't occasionally get out and frolic 'round the 'hood).  People drive too fast around here (I saw my neighbor's dog, which is still often running loose, get hit by a car - he was okay).  It sometimes is harder to let go of our four legged companions, like Shadow suggested, dogs are often much better company than people. 

I am sorry for you, but also glad you gave Boy a happy home.  He sure looks like a happy boy!    

[Newt]

I'm so sorry for your loss of Boy.  It hurts that they never live long enough,  but a life without a dog in it is missing too much.  What happy times you must have had!