Two years ago this month, we had to put down our 14-year-old yellow lab “Gretchen.” Though she was older, we didn’t expect it then — just before Thanksgiving.
We walked the grounds of the Loomis Basin Vet Clinic, a little dazed, knowing we soon we have to say goodbye for the last time. Dr. Jon Peek — our vet here, and the same doctor who put down the famous racehorse “Noor” and told me about that experience — had prepared us for the inevitable.
We got a book for our son “Dog Heaven” to help him understand: “When dogs go to heaven they don’t need wings, because they like running best,” it reads.
I wrote an obit for Gretchen: “We will miss your companionship, your thumping tail, our walks in the woods together, swimming and sailing with you at the lake, and napping next to you in front of the fireplace.
“You were a fixture at the foot of our bed for more than 13 years, friendly to all, and definitely weren’t a picky eater. You were our first ‘child,’ a ‘counselor’ to us on occasion, and a constant reminder why a dog is a man’s best friend.”
We could never replace Gretchen, but we now have a two-year-old red lab named Whiskey (pictured here). She is a wonderful dog: happy, playful, a swimmer and smart. Whiskey can carry The New York Times to our doorstep (when we subscribe during the wintertime). Her hips had been a concern, but her mobility remains excellent, the vet said in a checkup this month.
The relationship between dogs and humans has been documented for many thousands of years. I’m a big fan of the Dutch masters’ paintings of dogs — sitting beside their “master” or pulling a fowl off the dinner table when the guests are looking the other way. Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum houses some of them.
Here’s a video of a soldier coming home from Afghanistan to his dog. It’s very heartwarming:
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They truly are our best friends. My heart goes out to you. It is not unlike mourning the loss of any other friend. Dogs never complain, think the world revolves around their humans, and live to make us happy. Hard not to be affected by that kind of love, nor to miss it deeply when they go across the “Rainbow Bridge”. BTDT.
This week Channel 6 played a Nova episode about dogs. While I had known about the domestication of the silver foxes in Russia and what it tells about the domestication of dogs from wolves, there was much in it that opened my eyes to the truly unique relationship between humans and dogs. Science confirms what we already know in our hearts: dogs and humans have a unique affinity for and understanding of each other.
Very nice Jeff !!!!
Beautiful post, Jeff. I am so sorry for your loss, but inspired when families find dog-love again in a new and different way by welcoming another pet into their lives.
Also, I’ve been meaning to drop you a note and thank you for your excellent election coverage. Your blog was a valuable resource before, during and after election day. Keep up the great work!
We lost our “rescue” Lab/Rott earlier this year. Buster is missed very much still. I believe even if you expect to loose a canine family member, it still smacks you very hard if you have a heart at all. We also have a chocolate Lab that just turned three and although healthy, I do notice I worry about loosing him one day. Always checking for anything and then off to vet if a bump or anything looks out of place. Expensive but worth every dime.
Best to your family and always keep those fond memories well used.
Dogs can be a wonderful part of your life. What other animal is going to greet you at the door like you’ve been gone for days when all you did was run to the store for fifteen minutes?
There are so many dog breeds that make great pets, but it is important to learn some basics and what their requirements are for you and your family and of course, the dog.
A comforting piece by Wallace Sife:
http://www.aplb.org/resources/rainbow.html
My favorite dog of all time was our Border Collie, Tasha (named after Tasha Yar, the Star Trek NG character. the Enterprise’s security chief), who passed away about 4 years ago at age 12 from heart failure, before I could decide to euthanize. My first wife had never lived with a dog, and when a rough doggy IQ test ranked Borders on top, we decided it might be fun to have a very smart animal in the house. She was very smart, very affectionate, very cognizant of the pack hierarchy and no nonsense when working.
Tasha, who performed with Teri in canine agility demonstrations at the Fair and was certified to enter rest homes as a companion dog, was smuggled into SNMH one evening when Teri had been there for a couple weeks having almost died from her (until then) undiagnosed cancer. She’d just undergone her first chemo and was bouncing back from the brink quickly. One nurse pretended she didn’t see the dog but all the others were enthusiastic, including one of the charge nurses, a friend of Teri’s, who suggested it
. The admins had all since gone home, as expected. Did wonders for both Teri and the dog. Not to mention the nurses.
Colliedogs are hard for many to deal with… if you don’t regularly give them a job to do, understand the herding behavior, and act as the pack leader should, they can just seem hyperactive and nuts. Retrievers, especially Labs, are dogs that everyone can love, and usually do. Wonderful family animals, there is no better dog to have around kids.
I lost a number of family members in the last decade, all to natural causes, and while the loss of a spouse is incomparable, the loss of our pets was considerable. And, it should be noted, while they certainly didn’t understand it very well, both Tasha and Richard P. Feynkatt (aka Fine Kitty) unmistakably grieved Teri’s passing. It does go both ways.
Gretchen runs free through a meadow of (native) wildflowers in the sun!!! Her spirit trails you every day, following behind you like an angel! She lives! She lives!
Revenues and profits related to pet care in this country continue to climb. Why? Many of us did not have kids so perhaps we lavish our pets with a kind of “kid love” but I think it is because our pets provide us a refuge from an ever growing harsh world. We seek their unconditional love as a kind of buffer…I can say I would die without my animals.
They are my precious life line in a world, society, and culture I will never make sense of, even as I continuously try (like some kind of addiction). It’s crazy. The world is crazy but one thing is not crazy and this is my goofy dog with the giant ears that fly backwards out of the car window, and his short legs (remember watching him trying to run ‘with da big dogs’ Anna H? We laughed and laughed?) and when I see him, nothing is all that important anymore because he makes me laugh and brings out the best of who I am. What other living being can do this for us? Bring out the best in us?
Nothing can be more important than receiving and giving love? We cannot seem to do this with one another as a species but maybe we are just practicing for a day in this world when we will.
My heart to you and your family, Jeff.
We would not be able to live were we do with the feeling of security that we have, without our dogs. We have never trained our dogs to attack, or anything close to it, but they are very protective.
One the one occasion when a stranger came on hostile to me in another setting altogether, Tankasaurus (Rott/German Shepherd mix) instantly placed himself between myself and the other person and gave him an amazing woofing, and being sane, the other person backed off, and we got a chance to chat and straighten things out.
As I get older and grayer and less in shape, I know I will always have a dog, for that reason alone.
BUt, that completely leaves out the entertainment value, especially the interactions between Tank and Athena, our Tabby/Siamese. Tank plays ALF, and Athena plays snake charmer. Athena disregards Katrina, another shep mix, and walks on Misty, the mom, a white German sheperd. Doogie the cat keeps his distance, and Xena stays out in the little house.
When getting pills into Misty, I feel like Wiley Coyote trying to catch the road runner, forever coming up with new systems stamped “Acme.” Misty adapts to each system faster than the Borg in Startrek, but Ampicillin on a slice of pizza does get eaten. Katrina bounds through fields of grass like the deer she chases but never catches. Everybody avoids the bear, who slaunters down from the transfer station for blackberries and fruit in season.
Mocha, now gone, teased the dogs of the neighborhood while marching the fences of our middle Richmond apartment in SF, and kept the raccoons at bay by slamming the cat door in their faces. City did not allow for dogs, part of the reason we moved up here.
Speaking of the cost of pets: I was chatting this afternoon with a lady walking her English bulldog on the streets of Sutter Creek.
She listed off several costly episodes including the $2,500 bill to fix the poor dogs broken jaw after he caught a deer last year… Ouch! Both for the dog and her pocket book.
John
Food for the three dogs runs about $1400/year.
Vet seems to average around $1500/year. This year has been especially bad, with one $1700 incident for Misty, and a string of foxtails, at $50 to $100 a pop. Last year was a $700 rattlesnake bite for Katrina.
But weight that against an alarm system with a 40 minute response delay, and it is dirt cheap, and comes with so many fringe benefits.
After reading about the dog that treed a mountain lion, single handed, the other day, you can’t help but be amazed. Of course there was a kitty cat a couple of years back that treed a bear, twice in the same afternoon.
The dog, BTW, was a Jack Russell…