Author Topic: Animals In Our Lives  (Read 1098052 times)

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: Animals In Our Lives
« Reply #820 on: September 17, 2011, 02:03:43 am »


"For he loved a little dog..."
Ghost cat!  :o
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Kelda

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Re: Animals In Our Lives
« Reply #821 on: September 17, 2011, 07:02:27 am »


"For he loved a little dog..."
:laugh: :laugh: :laugh:

I see skimble and his adversary is also on the banner - cool!!
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Marge_Innavera

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Re: Animals In Our Lives
« Reply #822 on: September 17, 2011, 03:39:27 pm »
Our one-eyed Shih Tzu, Otis, passed on in mid-June.  He was 16, and we'd had him since he was a five-week-old puppy that someone had thrown in a Dumpster.

One day when Otis was much younger, I had him out in the front yard and he spotted one of our chickens that had gotten out of the chickens' fenced enclosure.  The hen was about his size and he thought she was a playmate so he took off after her.  She squawked and started running, which he also thought was play and he actually caught her -- grabbed her by her tail feathers.  Unfortunately for Otis, he was a tiny dog and weighed about the same as the hen, and she just kept on running -- dragging a determined Shih Tzu behind her.

If we'd only had a camera running we could have entered it in one of those home video TV shows.  As it was, Otis eventually let go and both were unhurt, though the hen was still hysterical and Otis was disappointed.



...
about 7 weeks old


...............
...
at 5 years, ready for a doggie costume contest .................... in front of our iris patch, spring 2010

Offline Kelda

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Re: Animals In Our Lives
« Reply #823 on: September 17, 2011, 04:21:35 pm »
Awww. RIP Otis.
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Offline Penthesilea

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Re: Animals In Our Lives
« Reply #824 on: September 17, 2011, 05:01:18 pm »
...............
...
....................in front of our iris patch, spring 2010[/center]


You, the doggie, the irises - all beautiful. What a great picture.
Sorry to hear he's gone. Rest in peace, Otis.

Offline delalluvia

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Re: Animals In Our Lives
« Reply #825 on: September 17, 2011, 07:16:51 pm »
You gifted Otis with a lovely, long doggy life.  He is resting peacefully.

Marge_Innavera

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Re: Animals In Our Lives
« Reply #826 on: September 17, 2011, 10:12:56 pm »
You gifted Otis with a lovely, long doggy life.  He is resting peacefully.

Yes, he did have a good life and we have a lot of happy memories of him.  Animals are like that.   :)

Offline Sason

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Re: Animals In Our Lives
« Reply #827 on: September 18, 2011, 10:08:18 am »
The sight of the hen dragging along the doggie must have been hilarious!

RIP Otis.

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Marge_Innavera

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Animals In Our Lives -- RIP For "Hound"
« Reply #828 on: September 22, 2011, 09:24:28 am »
I hope people will check back on this thread and read this story -- it's always timely for a discussion among pet lovers.  People sent in their own stories in Comments, including a doggie ghost story; and they're as touching as the story itself.  Anyone who's had pets for awhile eventually gets a "pet from hell" that's somehow special in its own way.



Hounded By Grief Over A Canine Companion
by Annmarie Kelly-Harbaugh

He has been trouble.

From the first second he stepped out of my car and ran far, far away to the recent whole chicken episode in the backyard. From the tunnels he dug under our fences to the path he swam to freedom when we lived on Chesapeake Bay. From the squirrels he treed and dismembered to the skunk that sprayed up his nose.

He has been a difficult Hound.

He has had fleas, ticks and worms, weeping eyes and seeping cysts. His first surgery cost more than my first car. Despite his slender frame, he has fought every dog he has ever come upon unleashed. Though he is neither strategic nor wise, Hound holds his own in these scuffs because he fights like a weasel: He bites hard and never lets go.

But he kept me company when I lived alone in Seattle and has barked off more predators than I care to count, including the thieves who broke in and stole tools while I slept. If Hound could have opened the French doors, I'd still have that nail gun, and he probably would have used it on the intruders himself.

Before bed, I always say, "Good boy, Hound. Good boy." Based on his history, he can have absolutely no idea what these words mean.

He's run away in swamps, forests and subdivisions. He's chased every motorcycle, no matter how far from our home it blazed. I imagined one day that's how he would go, a flash of brown and white loping away with my heart.

Instead Hound died of cancer. Not from a snakebite, a car accident or chocolate.

I found him at the top of the stairs. I put my head to his chest, unsure whether I heard his heart beating or mine. He was still warm when I carried him to the car, still soft as the vet laid him on the doggie stretcher and pronounced him gone. I have bid farewell to grandparents, neighbors and classmates, but I did not cry for them like I did for my Hound. He was my first dog, the great canine love of my life.

We shared only a decade, but I can hardly remember life before. I have imagined him into it all. We are children together: I'm climbing a tree with Hound nipping at my heels. He is barking at my first boyfriend and waiting at the back door when I tiptoe in after curfew. Hound is eating pizza in my college dorm. He nibbles on my bouquet as I prepare to walk down the aisle.

I am torn between being glad he's at peace and hoping he haunts me, not unlike a dog version of Patrick Swayze in Ghost. Dogs love us like we wish we could love others; they are faithful where we are feckless. For as long as they are able, they endure.

So today I'm wearing sweat pants, crying over chew toys and wondering about the future. I'm looking for my next big leap, a jump Hound knew we could no longer make together, but something I suspect he did not want me to miss.


http://www.npr.org/2011/09/20/140598522/hounded-by-grief-over-a-canine-companion


Offline Shakesthecoffecan

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Re: Animals In Our Lives
« Reply #829 on: September 22, 2011, 10:41:49 am »
That was a driveway moment for me in the middle of the road. Anyone who has had a pet they love could relate to her telling of her loss.
"It was only you in my life, and it will always be only you, Jack, I swear."