*
44 years old and you have me blubbering in front of a damn screen.
Winston was 14 years old when I had to put him to sleep after he had a stroke that left him paralized from the mid-section down. I know it was necessary, but it didn’t make it any easier and I still wonder if there wasn’t another way.
I buried Winston just over five years ago, and I just can’t get another dog.
I don’t want to lose another friend like that again.
I can see the stone that marks his grave from my back porch and I still look out that way when the thunder starts.
I still wonder if I was as good to him as he was to me.
I hope you find peace.
Replies
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Had a German Sheppard dog too, named Buck, (my address). I became near traumatized when I had to give him up when I left for school ... him thinking of how I abandoned him when we were buds. And I thought I'd make a GOOD Parent... for dan ...
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*Dan,I am so sorry for your loss. But thank you for helping the rest of us appreciate our most beloved dogs. We are so blessed to have or have had that kind of pure love.Nancy
*
Dan,
We both believe that our wonderful dogs understand that we do the best we can for them. Our deepest sympathy for your loss. Hope this helps bring at least a small smile to your face.( not written by us )
If you can start the day without caffeine,
If you can get going without pep pills,
If you can resist complaining and boring people
with your troubles,
If you can eat the same food every day and be grateful for it,
If you can understand when your loved ones are too busy to give you any time,
If you can overlook it when something goes wrong through no fault of yours and those you love take it out on you,
If you can take criticism and blame without resentment,
If you can ingore a friend's limited education and never correct him,
If you can resist treating a rich friend better than a poor friend,
If you can conquer tension without medical help,
If you can relax without liquor,
If you can sleep without the aid of drugs,
If you can honestly say that deep in your heart you have no prejudice against creed, color, religion or politics,
Then, my friends, you are almost as good as your dog.
Feeling and sharing your pain, Ken and Judy
*
Dan,
I really feel for you man. That was the most intense
internet experience I ever had. I gotta wipe my eyes out.
My wife read it too, tried to copy it but something didn't
work. I hope nobody minds too much, but I want to tell my
story here too, in hopes that Dan can know how others have
been and maybe something good can come of it all. Our dogs
are like people, except better. Any dog owner who feels the
way Dan does can know that he gave his best to Nik, a great
dog who had a great life.
My dog, Floyd, was my best friend for 10 years. We spent
most every day together, and he was an exceptional black lab
in many ways. He was a constant companion whether at home,
out hunting, in my shop, at work, you name it. We did
everything together, and people said he was just like me. I always
thought he was a part of my soul, we were that close. He
had hundreds of friends, and people still ask all the time
about him. But it brings tears every time I tell the story.
I never had him neutered because I knew I wanted a Floyd
junior someday. When he was 9, my wife and I fixed him up
with a good female, and voila, we got Outlaw Josey Wales,
his son, and for almost a year, we had two perfect dogs.
Josey was the smartest, best behaved lab I've ever heard of.
He just never let us down or did anything wrong. A lot of
personality, in differing ways from Floyd, but they both
seemed to understand English, kind of unreal.
But Floyd developed a wobble in his rear end. He had some
spells where he would just start walking sideways and then
just sort of bang into stuff or fall down. He'd be looking
at me real quizzically, not understanding why. And one
day,when I was working, I called home, and my wife was just
bawling. Floyd had gone into some seizures, vet said he would
probably have to be put to sleep due to a liver disease.
Gave him some pills, and he got better. That lasted about
two days, when the vet called back and said that it looked
like it could be treateable, great.
But more seizures came, and they got worse. And this is the
most heartwrenching thing, holding your dog while he's
slamming his head all around. He was so solid, a picture of
health. I could barely hang on to him.
Turns out, he had a brain tumor. We had to put him down,
which was the hardest thing. Only solace was that we had
Josey, his legacy to help us through it all. So I built
Floyd a real nice, heavy pine box. It was January in
Wisconsin, and I was freezing and crying out in the shop,
but didn't even think of myself at all.
I wanted to have a nice burial, so my wife and brother and
Josey went out to my dad's farm to have a ceremony, light a
fire and bury Floyd. He had a good life, ten great years.
I was blessed for that.
But while I was digging the hole, Josey slipped away. After
some time, we heard a car beep but didn't think too much of
it, until suddenly a fear grew in me and I just started
running like a madman up the road, through woods and a steep
hill, just running out of my mind up to the highway. I
looked, didn't see anything. I kept running up the road,
and there was this big black shape laying in the middle of
the road. NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!GODNOOO! Oh my God, you should
have heard me. It had to shake walls for miles. I ran to
him, and his head was smashed. Our puppy was dead. He was
just laying there all dead.
I picked him up and ran back down to my wife and just shook
my head. She was already hysterical. We were just
practically suicidal, and I mean it. I felt so dead,
cheated, with no comprehension. We just screamed for a
while, then I put him in the box with his Dad, and got the
burial over with. I threw a whole can of gas on the fire
that was keeping us warm, fired off 3 shots in my shotgun
for each of them, choked thru a little poem, and then we got
the hell out of there, drove home through a snowstorm just
out of our minds, completely.
When we got home and it was so unearthly quiet, we were
stunned and searching for answers that weren't going to
come. Then we started blaming ourselves, and asking what if
we had done this or that? But dammit, we didn't. It just
happened.
We got help from our friends. One pointed out that there
was a reason, that Josey had to be with his dad. I kind of
like that one. They are together forever. Another believes
that we'll be back in the fields in heaven, chasing
butterflies and hunting birds, just laughing and running and
jumping and rolling around, happier than ever.
Dan, I hope you get to throw sticks to another Shepherd
until you get to heaven with Nik.
Now, my wife and I have waited two years, and have gotten
Willie, Floyd's grandson from one of Josey's sisters. We
love him to sleep. I'm extremely paranoid about cars
though. I watch him like a hawk.
Friends, that was the worst day of my life. I discovered a
lot of things then. Life really is short. I dedicated
myself to my brothers to be the watchdog for their
daughters. I will never take my eyes off any of them when
they are around. Our children and pets are so precious; we
have to enjoy every moment of life. Here's to all the great
dogs, may you live to be a hundred.
I wish I could put all my feelings better into words. It
just doesn't look like much on the screen.
Thanks for reading this, if you managed to stick it out.
Good Luck Dan, I hope we'll hear from you again.
Your pal,
Mad Dog
I'm going to go look at their epitath, may post it. Take care,
everyone.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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Dan
I almost had the same thing happen -- during February 3 years ago I was finishing putting some siding on our house (was in and out of the yard to the place I was cutting on the black top) was inside had my work clothes and boots off when we heard a yell from the busy front street. It was more than a yell, it was a scream of something in tremondous pain.
I ran out of the house (apparently I had left the gate open) and there was Sierra in the middle of the street with her 2 front legs going at wierd angles and bones sticking out. Everyone said to steer clear of her as she had bitten one man; my wife got the car, and I scooped Sierra up and we went to the after hours animal hospital.
Before he would look at Sierra he said they needed a credit card -- there it is February, down in the low forties, in a t-shirt, bare feet, and no wallet and he wants a credit card. He believed me when I said I'd pay; he knocked Sierra out and took the x-rays and came back and said that there was little he could do and it would be best if he put her to sleep. Even if he could fix what was wrong, we would have to do daily bandage changing, carry her outside several times a day, and go back the the vets several times a week. He was surprised when I said I wanted a second opinion; and asked that he keep her medicated until the morning.
I found a wonderful orthopedic surgeon quite a few miles from the overnite place -- we took her there and he said he could fix both legs and she would be walking the next day. We showed up with a cheesburger and she came and got it with casts on both her front legs -- it made me cry so much that I had to leave. She had a plate put in both legs with a total of 23 screws.
She came around like a veteran -- never once did we have to carry her and we only took her back at to have the stiching taken out, the casts taken off, and evetually to have the plates removed.
Dan, she still is at my side and greets me like I've been away forever when I have to leave for awhile. Nik is gone for now just like the 3 schnauzers I grew up with, but they are still with me and I'm always comparing Sierra to each of them. When the time comes, go to the pound an see if they don't have a black lab. If they don't its worth the wait -- they are stuborn, they are the most lovabale dogs, and smart. The tiem will come.
*You know, there's some ducks that come over to my dock whenever I go down there. They're looking for bread chunks. I usually have some for them too.But there's this one duck that's always the first one there and doesn't like to hang out with the other ducks. Maybe it's because she's actually a dog...Thanks for the poem,Dan
*
Oh Dan, I am so very sorry.
We are told that time will heal our grief, but I think it is the remembering of our lost companions that makes that pain mute. Their love, unconditional and uncompromised, still is with us, and fills the boundless void.
Thank you, and everyone, for sharing your memories.
I lost my Nik in February. I have had many non-human friends, but his loss has been the hardest. When Jeeves came to me he fit in my hand. He hogged the pillow when he could get away with it, he sat on the edge of the bathtub criticising my reading material, he slept on any pile of papers or drawings he could, my fingers on the keyboard were his personal toys. He shared his bug collection with me (before breakfast), and saved me many times from the horrible, terrible paper towel monster. He took me with him on his quest for the door into summer. He was my cheering section, advisor, critic and confidant through school, work, marriage and divorce. He walked on my back when I came home tired and sore (15lbs of him - pure bliss), he sat with me through sleepless nights of morning sickness, he kept us company at those 2 am feedings. He accepted with patience and affection the demands of an infant-tail tugs, overly familiar fingers, too-tight hugs. He would just purr louder and roll over.
In February, he develped a mouth tumor, lost weight, then liver failure. When he left us, he was still purring.
To me, love walks in on little cat feet.
*
Thanks everyone for the poems and stories.
It's amazing how wrapped up in these four footed critters we can get. When I was burying Nik with my cousin David, we started talking about it and came to realize that we've really got more invested in these buggers emotionally than many people in our families -- we're with them every day, we teach them everything from puppydom and witness their degredation into old age. Then we have to watch them die.
When Nik was a pup, I thought that dogs were a better deal than kids, because they couldn't speak english and they died in thirteen years.
But no matter how much your kids mouth off to you, most of us never have to see them die.
God forbid any of us ever have to.
Kids are a way better deal.
Thanks again you guys n' gals,
Your pal,
Dan Morrison
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Lisa,
Sorry to hear. My wife just lost one of her old cats,
that's another story! I'm not tellin' it, she can if she
wants to. We've got 2 cats now.
Dog
*
"But no matter how much your kids mouth off to you, most of us never have to see them die.
God forbid any of us ever have to.
Kids are a way better deal."
Good perspective. I just spent a day at the side of my son's hospital bed in the ICU as he recovered from an acute asthma attack. He was probably out of danger by the time I got there (he lives 1 1/2 hours away), but it was scary enough seeing him with the tubes coming out and the video screen monitoring various functions, etc.
He is fully recovered and is back in school.
Rich Beckman
*Good luck with him Rich I know You'd carry his suffering if You could
*Dan I had something all thought out to say, but remembering old friends that have passed and thier funny quirks has made all that wonderful prose seem mute to your loss. my condolences craw
*Dan:Thanks for sharing your grief. I like many of the other folks am owned by an intelligent, empathetic dog. He is getting on in years now but still has his pride and does his job as good as he can. Probably the time when we became best buddies is when we spent 6 weeks by ourselves one spring off the road system in Alaska. Now I know that I'm not alone, that others feel the same way about their dogs and are just as lucky to have known such fine friends.Thanks
*Dan,I read your tribute just a couple of hours after you posted it. I can tell you it all came back to me that morning. I loved my pooch more than I loved myself at times. 14 years worth. It's been two years now and one thing holds me over. The good times we shared and the unselfish bond we had. You will most likely cherish the memories 30-40 years from now.Grown men do grieve and a good cry every now and then is good when we remember. That's OK.It's going to take awhile. That is a good thing too.It's a personal thing Dan. Something only you and Nik will understand at times. When the emotions overcome you, just take a walk and talk it out. What else can I say other than I know what you must be feeling.
*
It started out as a pretty normal day. Actually it was looking like a good one. I had to make some raised panel doors for the built-in entertainment center I had just completed. The entertainment center is in an addition to a neo-federal revival type suburban house outside of Nashville in Brentwood, Tennessee.
I also built the addition. I drew the excavation lines for the Latinos to dig. I formed and poured the footings to insure that my framing would go smoothly. Mauricio built the block wall foundation. I framed it, installed the trim and built the entertainment center.
When I started working as a laborer on a framing crew, Nik thought it was the best thing since Saturday. Sticks everywhere.. Not just regular sticks either; Manufactured sticks. All different sizes. The best ones were the square ones that were plentiful at the end of the deck (2x6 squares)... and the foot long 2x2s...
Nik went to work with me almost every day for the last eight years. We framed houses in western Montana, southern New Mexico, southwest Texas, central Tennessee, and the Pacific Northwest. One time we hitch-hiked from Missoula, Montana to Homer, Alaska. From Missoula to Homer is about the same distance as from New York to San Francisco. But the roads are a little more beat up. It feels like about six thousand miles. When I was in Alaska, I worked on the dock unloading fishing boats twelve hours, every day. Nik had to wait back at camp for me.
She didn't like that much.
She liked it when I took up carpentry. She could go to work with me every day AND play with sticks too!
Nik's game of stick was a bit different from the typical game of stick. In Nik's game, if she had the stick, she didn't have to listen to you. YOU had to get the stick in order to gain command vocally. Once you had the stick, you could yelp "sit" and she'd sit.
Immediately.
But the pressure would be building. You needed to get rid of that stick some quick after you yelled "sit". If there was water involved you were in serious danger of being gouged by her front paws or bitten in the ass (her favorite target on humans) if you didn't yell "SIT" and then in turn whip that stick as far as you possibly could into that lake (or ocean or river or whatever) soon enough. The only hope was to tire her out to a point that she'd take the stick and lay down in the bushes.
Nik was the best dog I've ever met. I hardly had to train her at all. "Get off the couch". "Go pee", "Stay". "Come". And the most important ones: "Sit" and "Scram". Say it once to her and you never had to say it again. She was amazing. I was riding my bike one day with her trotting beside me when she decides to run in the street. I said "Nik, other side". She did it and I've been able to use it as a command in her vocabulary ever since. If she's looking for the stick I just threw in the lake and I say "other side Nik" she'll look the other way. Amazing specimen.
When we moved back here to Nashville, I took a job with a framing subcontractor that I had worked with on a previous visit. About two years ago I worked for him framing one house. I was just visiting Nashville to analyze the amateur songwriting talent and needed work for about a month and a half. This framer and I went through ten other guys on a single house. I couldn't believe it. I was supposed to be the short term framer, not everyone else! Mike had a German Shepard named Buck. He was bigger than Nik and only about one and a half, but he looked almost exactly the same as ol' Nik. Even I could hardly tell them apart if they were laying down. Nik was about ten or eleven.
When I called up Mike two years later he hired me in a second and refrained from asking about Nik. He figured she MUST be dead by now... Nope. Mostly blind, deaf, speachles and balance impaired, but still happy as a clam. And quite aware of what's going on.
When I started subbing as a framer I had to build a rather large toolbox in the back of my rather small truck. I consequently compromised most of Nik's space. Actually I compromised all of it. She couldn't jump into or out of the truck anymore, the tailgate is sort of stuck shut (unless you have a screwdriver handy...) Nik started staying home from work. When I moved here a buddy got me a house on Old Hickory Lake. With a boat dock and everything. Nik is absolutely in paradise. Oops, I guess I mean that shewas absolutely in paradise.
Since I was working for myself, opportunities arose to do a wide variety of projects. I did some tornado repair of a roof which led to a large built-in bookcase/desk/cd shelf unit in a Victorian house with 12' ceilings.
That built in unit got me a few more built-in cabinet jobs. One was for the entertainment center that I mentioned above. I was hired to frame the addition, but after he saw the built-in unit he gave me the entertainment center and some custom maple vanities too.
Anyway, I was trying to finish up this entertainment center. I had the boxes in place and the face frame attached. So far, so good.
I was building the raised panel doors. At home in my shop. This way, Nik could go to work with me.
I had all the door frames cut and mortised. I was just sort of figuring out how I wanted to do the panels. A bunch of test runs on scrap MDF. It was getting late, nearly dusk, but it was also getting overcast so the darkness came quicker. No big deal, I had a 40 watt bulb in my shop and AM 650 WSM radio. The station that started it all.
I used to play in this band. We called it Hillbilly Grunge (among other things). When Nik was a puppy, she used to come to all the gigs with me. She'd sleep on the stage through the gig. Next to the speaker. It didn't bother her at all. In fact after she became a permanent fixture, a friend gave us a prop to use — a Grateful Dead LP with the words "Jerry Garcia Raped My Puppy" scrawled in silver fingernail polish on it. We used it for a couple of years.
Loud music didn't bother her. She wasn't wild about banjos, but she'd tolerate them. It was thunder and gunshots that she didn't like. (Consequently the fourth of July was her biggest nightmare... ) She could hide under the smallest table in the world if there was a thunder storm. Hell, she could hide under a half dollar if it was loud enough.
Now that I think about it, maybe she knew that a thunderstorm would be the death of her. As I said, she was all but deaf. If she'd have heard the thunder, she would have been hiding under a flea or something. Or maybe a paintbrush. The one time that a thunderstorm didn't bother her. She just laid there and enjoyed the rain. Unfortunately she was laying under the right front tire of my pickup. Which was backed halfway into the garage to give me access to my impressive toolbox that stole her spot. The driveway slopes down to the shop, so water was running off
*DanIt's 3 am and you just made me go out in my socks and give my dogs extra milk bones. Thank You!Scott
*Dan I'm sittin here glad no one can see me. I'm feeling Your pain and remembering Hoya who we also called Maddy because she'd take the teasin hard sometimes and We also called her Beanie for God and My son only know why. I've heard that everyman only gets one real special dog. All others are held up to and will always fall short of that dog. Hoya was mine and I suspect Nik was Yours. Good jobs and bad, work and no work, times of money and times without, humans will fail us but dogs will not. Not everyone out there is a dog person so some will miss what this is all about. You and I Know what it is like to look into those eyes and see Love pure and simple. It's there every time You look without fail. Details aren't important but in the end it was I who failed Hoya. In one moment of inattention I allowed her in harms way and she paid the price. Brother I cursed and cried and cursed again and am welling up again remembering that sweet creature. Hope that when You are shopping and standing in front of the dog food it doesn't hit you to hard or that when You catch Yourself reaching down to scratch her head that You can console Yourself with a special memory of her. Sorry to hear about Your loss. Best of luck with the healing. Skip
*His name was Rusty. Hewas my best friend from 8th grade till college. I got him he was the ugliest pup you have ever seen. gangley legs pot belly and couldnt walk straight. within a year he grew to be the prettiest irish setter you had ever seen. He was always there when I needed him in those teen years. He got heartworms my second year in college. The treatments took a lot out of him. We ran on the beach every day to get hin back in shape. Then 6 months later he jumped the fence and was hit by a car. My sympathies. -Rick Tuk
*Dan,That dog was mighty lucky to have you. And I mean that seriously. My sympathies.Rich Beckman
*Do not stand at my grave and weep.I am not there. I do not sleep.I am a thousand winds that blow.I am the diamonds glint on snow.I am the sunlight on ripened grain.I am the gentle autumn rain.When you awake in the morning hush,I am the swift upliftiing rushof quiet birds in circled flight.I am the stars that shine at night.Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there.
*I thought I was over all this, but your dog sounds so much like mine.My buddy Bo died while I was away workin in Toronto one winter about 5 years ago. Like your dog he was a 15 year old German Sheppard, with that same degenerative nerve disease (de-miolinating something), goin blind, goin deaf, losing bowel control.My wife was pregnant at the time and was gettin fed up cleaning up after him, so had taken to tying him up outside during the day. He'd never needed to be tied up before, but he missed me a lot and had taken to wandering, in that sway assed gate that had developedHe got loose one afternoon and wandered in to town. When last seen alive he was playin with some kids who had just come home from school. My wife found him some hours later, lyin half in/half out of a drainage ditch. He had drowned, but looked totally peaceful. I've heard since that animals that want to die head for water. Why he didn't just go across the road to the lake near our place I don't know. . . I don't let myself think that any of those kids woulda done him any harm.Like your dog he had quite a vocabulary. He knew when I told him, to go to either the car or the truck. When he was younger he used to hang out in the bed of the truck so I couldn't go anywhere without him, and as big and tough as he was, was similarly terrified of gunshots and thunder. And his game with a stick sounds just like yours. .. it was his favourite thing, but I had to have two sticks, cause he'd never give one up unless I had another to toss.I'm lookin a picture of him now, and I know I'll never have another like him. They may be lucky to have us, but we are sure blessed to have them.my sincerest sympathies-pm
*My sympathies Dan. My buddy was a St. Bernard/Mastiff, got her from the pound when I was a boy. Came home from work one night, and she was dying from a twisted stomach. She died while I was waiting to hear from the vet; stupid cow had her phone turned off. Twelve years now, I still miss her. I think we all know how you feel.
*44 years old and you have me blubbering in front of a damn screen. Winston was 14 years old when I had to put him to sleep after he had a stroke that left him paralized from the mid-section down. I know it was necessary, but it didn't make it any easier and I still wonder if there wasn't another way. I buried Winston just over five years ago, and I just can't get another dog. I don't want to lose another friend like that again. I can see the stone that marks his grave from my back porch and I still look out that way when the thunder starts. I still wonder if I was as good to him as he was to me. I hope you find peace.
*Man, what a great post. How fortunate of you to have had such a fine friend. I too, like TLE, just can't get around to having another dog since Sam. What a dog, truly my best friend.
*I sure do miss my old cat buddy Bob. He was 13 when he died. My wife and I were with him at the vets when we had to make the choice to let him go. He had diabites for the last two years of his life and I had to give him a shot in the morning and one at night. It finally caught up with him and took him from us. It's still hard to wake up in the morning and not have him here. We will always miss Bob. I miss him crawling up in my lap for a good ear rub and a nap. I would sit till my legs went numb so as not to disturb him. I know how you all feel and my prayers are with you.Ed. Williams
*"Sometimes Pain Must Be Put To Rest" Those concerned say it's for the best. But they're not there, when the time comes to say our final goodbyes... We put our own feelings aside And try to think of him He tried to be strong He tried to hide the pain He tried to not make us cry But in the end -and I know he'll forgive We had to break down, just as He had to pass.Damn, a dog I never met and now I have a tear in my eye.I'll crack a beer and toast your friend. Animals make the truest friends- they don't fall for all the bullshit.