Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Jumping the Gun?

Up until August, my partner and I had two large dogs. We had to put our girl down in August and our boy has been languishing, both with loneliness and - we found out last week - lymphoma. Neither of us believe in extraordinary measures and ruled out chemo for him. So, we planned to see the illness out and, when the time came, we'd put him down ourselves (hubby works in animal research).

Thinking that yesterday was the time, we prepared ourselves, dug a grave, and amidst many tears administered the first shot - a narcotic to calm him. The second shot - a big one - was to knock him out completely before giving the third which would finish things. Often, they're gone before having the third drug.

Maybe it was seeing the fresh grave.

Our boy never went to sleep and as we waited for something to happen, a big thunderstorm blew in, soaking us, the dog, and turning what would have been his grave into a swimming pool.

Doggie seemed none the worse for wear - if anything those drugs seemed to mellow him right out. He seemed to rally just a tiny bit despite our jumping the gun. We'll still lose him, but I'm not complaining about having him around for a little while longer.

We'll file this one under "NOT QUITE YET"

5 comments:

Bigg said...

You'll know when it's time.

Firethorne said...

As will you, my friend.

Ravn... said...

Is he a labrador? We have one too..his name is Ola:)

I'm glad i finally found your blogg..

love..

YNAGER '65 said...

OMG that is one of the hardest things to me, losing something that is so dear to you.

Patience my friend, and Bigg is right you will know when it is time.

Firethorne said...

Thanks for the comments, guys. No, he was not a lab - a Great Dane. I just like the doggie angel picture :)