Healing My Heart Again

[Bryce]

[Honeyman]

Very nice, Bryce. Just saw my neighbors come back here from their other house with one dog and not two. Felt so bad for them and I think I will forward this to them.

[Bryce]

Very nice, Bryce. Just saw my neighbors come back here from their other house with one dog and not two. Felt so bad for them and I think I will forward this to them.

Please do. Hopefully at least help get some of their emotion out and start the healing process.

I lost another it never gets easier.

[Honeyman]

Very nice, Bryce. Just saw my neighbors come back here from their other house with one dog and not two. Felt so bad for them and I think I will forward this to them.

Please do. Hopefully at least help get some of their emotion out and start the healing process.

I lost another it never gets easier.

So sorry, Bryce. While we don't know really know each other, one thing I am 100% certain of is you gave him/her a fantastic life. That pooch hit the dog lottery being with you.

Take care.

[Turkeytop]

Saying goodbye to a best friend is one of life's greatest sorrows.

[Rate This]

I’m typing this while my dog is about a foot from me… I can’t even fathom…

[Turkeytop]

It's been a few years since we had to part with our beloved dog. But I still think of her every day.

Hell, I still talk to her. Tell her all the favourite things she liked to hear. "Good dog." "Big dope." "Good girl." Pretty girl." It's no longer politically correct to tell a woman she's pretty. But dogs still like to hear it. At least, our Janet did.

Now my eyes are stinging.

[Honeyman]

I've lost both my parents, and a number of close friends. However, the depth of pain when your dog dies is something different. Something about the unconditional love they offer you.

I have come to watch videos of Emma and Jack now, and enjoy them. Romping around the yard, being nuts, rolling in the grass, etc. I know the love....and time...and cost....and walks...and thousands of dumps I picked up thru the years. What I console myself when I start to cry again because I miss them so much with, is how fate could have been so different. All my dogs, and I know many of Bryces, were rescues...in every sense of the word. Virtually doomed. Luna, my current pooch (see profile pic), was literally minutes from being put down. There is only so much we, as human beings, can give to these beautiful spirits, who are on many levels so much better than us. Shelter. Food. Love. It's a bargain.

Bryce might cry tonight, tomorrow, three years from now thinking about his pooch. But he gave that hound a better life than anyone on this fucking hemisphere would have. And he should be proud, and know that his beloved friend truly appreciated it and loved him for it so much. Such a good dog!

[Turkeytop]

Where To Bury A Dog
There are various places within which a dog may be buried. We are thinking now of a setter, whose coat was flame in the sunshine, and who, so far as we are aware, never entertained a mean or an unworthy thought. This setter is buried beneath a cherry tree, under four feet of garden loam, and at its proper season the cherry strews petals on the green lawn of his grave. Beneath a cherry tree, or an apple, or any flowering shrub of the garden, is an excellent place to bury a good dog. Beneath such trees, such shrubs, he slept in the drowsy summer, or gnawed at a flavorous bone, or lifted head to challenge some strange intruder. These are good places, in life or in death. Yet it is a small matter, and it touches sentiment more than anything else.

For if the dog be well remembered, if sometimes he leaps through your dreams actual as in life, eyes kindling, questing, asking, laughing, begging, it matters not at all where that dog sleeps at long and at last. On a hill where the wind is unrebuked and the trees are roaring, or beside a stream he knew in puppyhood, or somewhere in the flatness of a pasture land, where most exhilarating cattle graze. It is all one to the dog, and all one to you, and nothing is gained, and nothing lost -- if memory lives. But there is one best place to bury a dog. One place that is best of all.

If you bury him in this spot, the secret of which you must already have, he will come to you when you call -- come to you over the grim, dim frontiers of death, and down the well-remembered path, and to your side again. And though you call a dozen living dogs to heel they should not growl at him, nor resent his coming, for he is yours and he belongs there.

People may scoff at you, who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall, who hear no whimper pitched too fine for mere audition, people who may never really have had a dog. Smile at them then, for you shall know something that is hidden from them, and which is well worth the knowing.

The one best place to bury a good dog is in the heart of his master.

by Ben Hur Lampman

[Mega Hertz]

Oh, no. I shouldn't have read this.

I love dogs more than life itself. When I get home and my dogs jump all over me and wag their little butts, or crawl up next to me in bed and cuddle, it's one of the greatest things in the world. There is nothing more in this world that will love you quite like a dog. And they never ask for much in return.

I'm sorry, Bryce. I can't imagine what you're dealing with right now, especially if you feel about dogs the way I do. I am certain you gave that dog the best possible life and it loved you so much for it. You gave it the only thing it ever wanted: love.

And the last piece of Slim Jim.

I hope you can try and find some peace with it, man. I wish you well.

[Turkeytop]

Dogs seem able to read our mood. If you come home after a bad day, the dog will start clowning around to make you laugh.

[bmw]

It sucks that most dogs only live 10-15 years (if you're lucky) because unless you're really old when you get one, you're all but guaranteed to have to deal with its death at some point. I haven't had a dog since my childhood dog died in 2001, and I remember taking that one pretty hard. More recently (a little over 3 years ago) my pet bird (a parakeet) died very unexpectedly and I cried off and on for a week. I agree with the sentiments here, there's nothing quite like the bond between a human and a dog (or any other pet).

[Deleted User 9015]

It sucks that most dogs only live 10-15 years (if you're lucky)

Mark Levin wrote a very good book about this and a dog he owned that was a rescue. It's called "Rescuing Sprite". Not a fan of him, but the book is genuine and a good read.

[Turkeytop]

Roy MacGregor, a collumnist with Toronto's Globe & Mail once wrote

A puppy can steal your heart. An old dog can break your heart. But a middle aged dog, owns your heart,

[Round Six]

So when your put your dog down, do you stay with it while it passes?
Or do you leave before the vet does it?
I read something encouraging owners to be right there with the dog.
Here's a cut-n-paste I seen from Twitter:

Pets, it turns out, also have last wishes before they die, but only known by veterinarians who put old and sick animals to sleep.
Twitter user Jesse Dietrich asked a vet what was the most difficult part of his job.
The specialist answered without hesitation that it was the hardest for him to see how old or sick animals look for their owners with the eyes of their owners before going to sleep.
The fact is that 90% of owners don't want to be in a room with a dying animal.
People leave so that they don't see their pet leave. But they don't realize that it's in these last moments of life that their pet needs them most.
Veterinarians ask the owners to be close to the animals until the very end.
"It's inevitable that they die before you. Don't forget that you were the center of their life.
Maybe they were just a part of you. But they are also your family. No matter how hard it is, don't leave them."
Dont let them die in a room with a stranger in a place they dont like.
It is very painful for veterinarians to see how pets cannot find their owner during the last minutes of their life.
They dont understand why the owner left them. After all, they needed their owner's consolation.
Veterinarians do everything possible to ensure that animals are not so scared, but they are completely strangers to them. Don't be a coward because it's too painful for you.
Think about the pet. Endure this pain for the sake of their sake.
Be with them until the end.