My Dog Story
09/09/07 21:22 Filed in: Personal
I wrote this brief epitaph to my first dog Sunny 11 years ago and it still makes me choke up...
My first dog sunny died a year ago. He came to us 6 weeks after my mom died . He was six weeks old. He bawled all that first night until I put him in the bed with me. I called Vicki at work to complain and she laughed. I would like to say that he was always good and didn’t stray or pee in the house or nip at me or anyone he didn't approve of. Nah, he did all this and more. I loved him. I didn’t always treat him right but he didn’t always do me. He was a mongrel, AKC registered I’d insist, part German Shepherd , part Lab.
He was ill only a day before he didn't come to greet me at the door. I didn't miss him until later that night when he wasn't in his usual spot and looked sick. Although we passed it off as a viral illness soon to resolve, neither Vicki nor I were convinced. He crawled up on my bed late in the night and died where he always slept, at my feet. I bawled like a baby for days after. We kept his frozen body in the garage for days until the ground thawed some. Vicki dug a four foot pit in the garden we love so much and I laid him in there and covered him over. The dogwood we planted over him suffered that first summer and died. The next plant won’t.
I hope everyone has a dog story like Sunny. I'm sorry I didn't earlier.
Post Script: We have moved since years ago and the house is for sale. I did not get a chance to look at his resting place but I hope its overgrown in the woody part of our old garden since the owners probably never went back there, and have left the place. The new owners are unlikely to do anything where we placed him. But its only a shell, the body means little now just his soul and our memories.