New old dog: it's love again.

I still have the tactile sense of my rubbing of Cleo's ears in the last hours - I hope I never lose it - it was absolute pure love between the two of us.

Katy, who had been lethargic to the max in many ways for too many hours, another story, perked up in the vet room. I hesitate to say she sort of liked the place. But the minute they helped get her out of the car, a big deal, stretcher, she was sort of alert. Diane says she was alert when I went in to get help, maybe recognition of the place.

The vet and I talked at length. Decision done. We changed places, now me in front of her saying I love you to her eyes which were looking at me, he with the injections. When her head dropped.

This is all a kind of hell.

Meantime, I've just heard from the neighbor I like much. Her dog is in a similar course.

Just reading that made me cry. See - I haven't progressed very far in the past six and a bit months. I miss him every day still - tried to think about getting another dog to keep Megan company, and because we've always had two - but any dog would have such a hard act to follow - at the moment I feel as if no dog could live up to what Harvey was to us.

I feel as if part of me is missing. Still can't believe he's not going to come running into the room - eyes bright, tail wagging, so full of love. We had almost twelve wonderful years with him - he was brave and wonderful right to the end. I miss him. I'll tell you more about him some time - when tears aren't pouring down my face!

Thank you for caring enough to ask in the midst of your own grief. So kind and thoughtful of you.

Oh osso.

I'm heartbroken right along with you. Katy was so lucky to have such tender, devoted care from you.

And you from her.

All of us will miss her.

When my husband and I lost Kelly, our setter, he couldn't stand the idea of another dog.. no replacement, no way. He was the one who went through obedience training with him and kept it up. They were a great pair, a happy memory for me seeing them go through their off leash routines. And on leash running through Venice.

I still talk with him once in a while. I think wife #2's children (they're in early adulthood) have a dog, but he doesn't sound very attached. To the dog, I mean (smiles). Ah, life moves on, and I know it, but sometimes some of it gets ya.

Right where it hurts - the heart and the gut! Flipping dogs - can't imagine life without one, but there is always the heartache. That seems to be the price we pay for so much loving.

There is bonding and their is bonding.

My husband was a handyman at the time, had just gotten an mfa degree but (so?).
There was this skinny young setter that had hung at the lumber yard for a while, so J said he'd try to get him a home. Not meaning ours., at least by his tone when he drove up, parked, and showed me the dog. It was me that wouldn't even think of letting the dog go. He might have been a year old then.

I hadn't had dogs as a kid, though my parents did before I arrived, and my aunt had an irish setter. My parents' last dog was Little, the runt of the irish setter litter. I never met Little, nor Sally, the english setter who ate socks, well before me.

So when a skinny shaky irish setter showed up with J in the old chevy apache - I can still visualize it - he was home. J and Kelly bonded immediately after we went in the house, if not sooner.

Very sad and sorry to read about your loss and Katy's struggles, Jo. Our four-legged family bring so much to our lives. It hurts and it's hard to be without them.

Thinking of you.

Thank you, J.

"..I hadn't had dogs as a kid...."

When I was a kid, I remember a big furry thing sleeping by my bed. It was a scraggy old sheepdog called Andy, who took up guard position when I came home as a baby. I vaguely remember him, as he died when I was two or so. He never left my side, apparently.
That's why I named my first dog Andy, although he should have been renamed Randy, according to my dad, as he always was.
I think many of the black and white mongrels around the area could call Andy their daddy. I got him at four, and he went underneath the ice cream van when I was 17. He always followed that van, as the ice cream guy used to give him a free squirt into a cone.
Alas, he was on holiday and the idiot who was covering decided to drive up our little residential avenue at full throttle.
My favourite memory of Andy was helping my dad build a five foot high gate, to stop the dog going out on the pull.
He watched us work up a sweat, waited until we stepped back to admire our handiwork, before casually leaping the gate and buggering off for the night.
I swear he was grinning as he trotted out of sight.

Only telling you this in an effort to put a little smile on your face, Oss old girl.

I love it, but you know that. Keep talking.

I'm a troglodyte mess.
Not least, I have many tiles to seriously scrub. But they remind me.

OK.....Andy was hard to get over, but Glam Rock, Mini skirts, Mini cars and moody, aloof females proved not only a good way to get over the loss, but also clear my complexion at the same time.
The next dog was Ben....black and white mongrel, possibly a grandson of Andy, and beyond doubt, the nosiest dog in the world. He was also a chocaholic. He was never given chocolate, he just used to seek it out and snaffle it.
We hid it on the top shelf of a wall unit once, and he got it. He chewed through countless handbags for the reward of one square, usually covered in fluff (lint) and several months old.
If they could have impregnated all serious drugs with just a whiff of choccy, he would have been brilliant at Heathrow.

The first time we realised he had a problem was when I came downstairs on Xmas morning and thought that the christmas tree looked a little strange.
I made coffee and didn't think any more of it until several hours later, when one of the extended family asked why we had empty things hanging on the tree.
Ben, it transpired, had sucked all the chocolate out of every tree novelty he could reach. There were only four at the very top that were intact.

The nosey part showed itself when one of us was standing and looking out of the window. He'd immediately position himself next to you, front paws up on the sill so he was standing. He wasn't quite tall enough to see out properly, and we found that if we made a noise indicating something out there was interesting, like "oo-oo-ooh!", he actually tried to hop with his back legs, to gain an inch or two.
His claim to fame was being known by every person, kid or parent, who passed the gate each day on the way to the adjacent Primary school.

At going home time, it was not unusual to have parents knocking on the door because Ben wasn't in his usual place, head sticking out of the iron bar gate, waiting for a fuss.
He lived to the grand old age of 19, and would have probably gone on longer if he thought there was a bar of chocolate in the house.

Choco, I've heard of that, some place in New Mexico.




Thank you, lrd.

Also, hi, boomer, and I know you understand.

Hi Osso,
Was sorry to hear the news. You knew when the time had come and you did what had to be done. I know how it is. Love, death, going on and remembering the good stuff. Sending love. s

Osso

My thoughts are with you right now...

osso, so sorry to hear.
i know how much it hurts.

RIP katy dog...

Oh, this is so hard to read.

Dog star, Katy, the
short time together was no
less intense, loving

Thank you, Region and Jeswoman.
As I've said, I can't stand it.
Of course I can. But anyway,
love is a dog.

So true, Osso. And what a pure and beautiful love.