Yeah, we just got back from the vet -- I wrote the post while she was still here. She really couldn't walk anymore; we couldn't have put it off much longer.
Thanks.
Sorry for your loss.
All my dogs have been better than me.
My sympathies. That's a really lovely eulogy for her.
My childhood dog didn't come to eat one day, so I went out and found her. She wasn't moving, except for labored breathing, and maggots were on her. Dad cleaned her up and put her down on some old blankets. There was no 24 hour vet to put her down and she didn't seem to be in enough pain to require shooting. Plus, it's kind of awkward to shoot your dog when you live in town. She died in a couple of hours. We buried her in the "fort" my brother and I had constructed by digging a giant hole in the ground. She was a brutal dog, if you were judging from the perspective of a small animal. Even when nearly blind for the last several years of her life, she spent the day trying to kill birds and rodents. Her greatest joy in life was stealing food from small children.
This is such a lovely tribute, LB. I'd say that she and our dog would have gotten along well, except that it's always sort of unclear what "getting along" means to our beloved mess of a dog. Thank you for telling us this. I love the details.
My standard line about our childhood dogs is this: it took them about three years to get house-broken, and then they went senile when they were six years old and started having accidents, and then they lived to be sixteen.
This is beautiful, LB. I'm so sorry for your loss.
9: After they moved to a new house, my sister's dog never would acknowledge that the basement wasn't a free-piss zone. This was unpleasant for everyone involved because the basement didn't have a door and did have carpet.
One of her strong points was that she was impeccably housetrained until the stroke -- from four months to fourteen and a half, while I won't swear she never messed up, there were certainly few enough accidents to count on your fingers. (The last couple of months, not so much, but you can't blame her.)
My sister now has a chihuahua and those things are always ready to go off.
Brothers and Sisters
I bid you beware
Of giving your heart
To a dog to tear
Heh. I was actually thinking about that poem, but it really is terrible and I say that as someone who's generally very fond of Kipling.
I'm so sorry for your loss. My dog is not eating at the moment and I'm terrified at the mere hint of doggie illness. But she is also my first dog and so I have no perspective. I think good dog/bad dog sort of gets lost in my dog. (Objectively, possibly she is not perfect. But the quality of love she gives and receives is pretty close to holy.)
Now I'm imagining a dog poem titled The Carpet's Burden.
My elderly cat has terrible arthritis - twice he's jumped down, only to go paralyzed from the waist down from the impact of landing, for fifteen seconds or so. He skitters away using his front legs, terrified, and seems to recover pretty quickly, but it's super traumatic to watch. Before I took him in and got the diagnosis I was thinking he had some tumor or something life-threatening.
Oh no. RIP Dogbreath. I petted you.
Very sad news, LB.
Oh, LB, I am so sorry. What a lovely tribute to her.
But I'm going to miss her anyway.
She sounds like a great dog. Never knew her but, through your eulogy, I miss her too. So sorry for you, Buck, and the kids.
Sorry about your dog, LB. She sounds like a fine creature all around.
She does indeed sound like a great character. Very sorry to hear today's news. Hope it doesn't feel too horribly quiet and empty chez Breath.
Now I'm imagining a dog poem titled The Car Pet's Burden.
Fixed that for you.
Stupid Opinionated Mitt Romney, can't do proper HTML tags.
So sorry for your loss, LB. What a tribute! What a life! What a dog!
The only thing that could be worth losing a dog is having one.
They wanted us to train our puppy to be calm when we got home, but I can't see the point of that. I love wiggly homecomings.
Really touching LB, my condolences. Also, I'm now making my dog promise to never die.
The OP: And for some reason her feet smelled exactly like cornchips.
There have been big-screen antecedents:
"Mulan: Just because I look like a man doesn't mean I have to smell like one. "
"Mushu: So a couple of guys don't rinse out their socks. Picky, picky, picky. Well, myself, I kinda like that corn chip smell."
What a lovely eulogy for Dogbreath. I'm so sorry for your loss.
Sorry for your loss
Don't have any dog stories today.
That is very sad to hear about DogBreath.
Our little cat is only about 4, so we're hoping for many years of constant complaining about her captivity -- "The food here is pure poison, and the portions -- so tiny!"
My condolences, LB. That was a beautiful tribute.
Oh, LB, I'm sorry that had to happen. Poor pup.
I added a picture -- we're terrible about pictures, so the only one I could find had to be blown up far enough that it's really fuzzy. But so was she.
Sorry to hear about Dogbreath, LB. It still hurts to think about how we had to have the dog I had as a kid put down after his kidneys failed. He was stubborn and disobedient and I'd give anything to have a dog like him again.
I've made progress resocializing my dog. I can tell he know's he's not supposed to bark at strange dogs because he makes this horrifying strangled whine when he gets too excited.
So sorry for your loss, LB, but you did in fact describe her so well that the photo is exactly how I pictured her from the eulogy. It's so good that you paid her such fine attention.
I've never had a dog. I'm working up to it. 30.1 is very encouraging.
My dog barks like regular all the time, except when the cat is in the house. Then he makes funny chewbacca sounds that we never hear any other time. I think he is trying to meow for her.
I would urge anyone tempted but uncertain about a dog to get one. It was the best choice we made last year, with a lot of additional daily happiness. Having to be in nature with the dog every day (we don't walk him, but he gets a river trip every day) is great. The extra cuddling is great. The emotional back and forth is great.
(He doesn't actually bark very often at all, but when he barks, he has a nice deep regular bark.)
Easing Brain Fatigue with a (Dog!) Walk in the Park NYT
Science! Wired Brains of Twenty-Somethings Prove It!
I have a Testimonial! I walked my dogs twice today and now my brain is minty green and spring fresh and like a virgin brain!
I'm sorry, LB. Thanks for the words.
I would urge anyone tempted but uncertain about a dog to get one.
Seconded. It's sometimes annoying or inconvenient, but I love having to walk him every day. Daily river trips would probably kill mine from water intoxication, though. Mine also has some vocalizations reserved for my cats, and anytime they're not mean to him he's deliriously happy.
We pretty much delegated all emotional stuff to the dog so we didn't to mess with it ourselves. Saved so much time.
So sorry to hear that, LB; a lovely remembrance.
I would urge anyone tempted but uncertain about a dog to get one
Or a cat, if tempted but uncertain on that front. My household just took in a new one after our 4 (four!) passed away in relatively quick succession, over a year-and-a-half stretch. I felt that I wanted to take a break -- not have my heart broken again -- but this one decided on us, and it's really very nice.
He's not like any other -- why would he be? And that's just neat.
An excellent tribute, LB. My sympathies.
53: We did that too, except with my little sister. Didn't work out quite as well.
Even with dogs, it doesn't work if you allow them to sit on the good sofa.
What a nice-looking dog. I'm sorry, LB.
OT: I am of course too manly to go to a yoga class, instead keeping fit by performing feats of strength and agility with axe and truck tire at village fairs in the heartland, but were I to have attended a yoga class today I would have been a bit taken aback when the ambient music abruptly turned into "Crocket's Theme" from Miami Vice.
No yoga for Flip today? That's a stretch.
Was it really ambient music or just a Philip Michael Thomas album?
Crockett's! Good Lord, what sort of child of the '80s am I?
58.2: Oh, really? It is Jan Hammer, so I suppose .. whatever .. but I can't help but agree that that might not help you go to your deep relaxation place. What kind of yoga place is this, anyway?
58: did they hit you with In The Air Tonight afterwards?
So sorry about your dog, LB.
The summer I turned 20 I spent in Germany, and when I came home new people had moved into my grandmother's house next door (she had died the previous winter) and my childhood dog had been put down, at age 16. That was a thoroughly sucky homecoming.
There's still nothing that makes my heart jump out of my chest quite like a black miniature poodle, especially if it is ungroomed and mop-like.
65.2.b: That happened to me, too. Childhood dog had been put down, as I learned upon returning from Chile at age 21. I noticed right away when I walked in the door and...no dog.
The dog we got when I was in fourth grade (Is there a worse dog name in the history of dog names than "Brenda"? My sister named it for a favorite babysitter.) and the 1978 Chevy Impala I drove all through high school got put down the same week when I was in college.
When I was in my mid-twenties, I visited my parents and asked my other sister, who was still in high school and thus living at home, "Didn't you guys have a cat?". [Pause.] "Mom?" She hadn't even noticed.
67: My friend named his childhood cat after some babysitter or cousin or something, named "Brian." Then they found out it was female, so he added the suffix "Annette" in honor of some other cousin or something. Cats don't have gender though.
My current cat is named "Monkey". It's not clear to me why this is.
What a remarkably beautiful piece of thick description. I should be so lucky as to be eulogized like this some day. Anyway, I'm very sorry, LB. I still think often of the sainted Megan (my first dog as a grown-up) and hope that Dogbreath lives on similarly sainted in your memories. Would that I could be home with our current border collie/Aussie mix, I would hug the cussed beast.
Oh sad. I missed this earlier.
67: I think of all dogs as male and all cats as female.
Dora the Cat is 12. Her health is ok-ish despite diabetes. I am however terribly worried about getting her across the country.
(Dora is sort of a dick to everyone but me, to whom she is a fluffy heap of love and hilarity. This is exactly as cat owners prefer it. If the cat liked everyone, it wouldn't mean anything.)
Sorry to hear that, LB. Most of my conversations with my sister consist of mimicking noises our dog (who still lives with my mother) makes. We can still call each other up and just say "tiktiktik" several times, then hang up feeling cheered up (she has a way of walking that combines excitement and daintiness - that's the sound her nails make on the floor).
66: There was a goldfish, but it was not the same one as when you left.
A better obit. than most people get, and well earned by the sound of it. You always know, when you take on a pet, that they're going to die eventually, but it doesn't make it any easier when they do.
(Is there a worse dog name in the history of dog names than "Brenda"? My sister named it for a favorite babysitter.)
The dog I mentioned in 65 was named Patty, after the little girl on my favorite television show at the time we got her, Love, Sidney.
Later, my second grade class discussed middle names and I found out that every other girl had either Marie or Lynn as a middle name. Despite my insistence, my mom refused to let me change my own middle name to one of those two, so I gave our dog a middle name instead. Patty Marie Blumelastname.
I can't remember if I've mentioned that Smearcase family pets always have the middle name David regardless of gender. If there is a reason, I have forgotten it. I sometimes extend the privilege to inanimate objects like Piano David Smearcase.
Like the people I know whose Christmas turkey is always called George.
78: if you were a Southerner it would be Piano Lee Smearcase. And if your piano killed someone (by falling on them, perhaps, or simply by emitting a chord of such plangent beauty that their hearts broke with ecstasy) it would be Piano Wayne Smearcase.
Plangent Beauty of the Middle Wayne, eh?
78: you've mentioned it, and it is thoroughly charming.
I have a longtime habit of using the second half of my real first name (which is compound) as an affectionate diminutive to tack onto other people's first names.
I know a family that tacks "bob" on to the end of every male name in their family. Jimbob, Stevebob, Robertbob.
OMG I missed this earlier. I'm so sorry Lizardbreath. Dogbreath sounds like she was a wonderful companion.
Oh man, just catching up--that's terrible, sad news, LB, very sorry to hear it. RIP Dogbreath.
And for some reason her feet smelled exactly like cornchips.
This was true, from time to time, of one of our dogs (we called it Frito Paw, a sign that she was due for a bath because she was otherwise pretty much odorless). Oddly, our other dog--her littermate--was not afflicted with this condition, never could figure out what it was about what with them having the same food and environment and all.
I learned last night on a nature program that white-tailed deer fawns are almost totally odorless, which allows them to evade detection by would-be predators. Apparently, the fawns spend a lot of time hiding in the brush while Mom and Pop go do deer stuff.
I have a longtime habit of using the second half of my real first name (which is compound) as an affectionate diminutive to tack onto other people's first names.
That's awesome. Do you do it like "Namey[thing]" for full parallelism, so that someone named Frank would be Frankything?
Yes! Exactly. The suffix is actually -yname.
That was really lovely, LB, and I made several friends read it. ♥
I'm not sure how I missed this post earlier. This is a wonderful eulogy.
I'm so sorry, LB. I love seeing the picture of her and hearing more about her after all these years. Thank you.
I'm so sorry, LB. She sounds wonderful, and she looks like a very a beautiful dog.
It's funny how attached you can get to a dog. I grew up with a dog named Maggie, a black lab who loved to swim and to chase squirrels, who slept under my bed every night. She died many years ago, but to this day, I still think of her as a member of the family, and I think of her often even after so many years.
The dog we got when I was in fourth grade (Is there a worse dog name in the history of dog names than "Brenda"?
My dad as a child had a bulldog named "Brin." This was a puzzle for me when I was small until my grandpa explained that Brin was a brindle bulldog. I was still skeptical about whether this was just another weird family usage until I read the Little House books with awesome "Jack the brindle bulldog." Brin - vindicated.