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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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 RE: Good news and bad news (in reply to Guest)
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I can relate to your experience of putting down your dog Cleo, Shroomy. My wife Marta and I raised a baby rabbit we picked up while assigned to the American Embassy in Santiago, Chile. We named her Chiquita (she would come when called by name), taught her to do little tricks, and shipped her back to the Washington. After four years in Washington we were assigned to the Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia. We shipped her to Jakarta via KLM with an overnight stay in Amsterdam. She was one well-traveled bunny.
She lived for seven years, and she brought us great joy during those seven years. Part of the family, and she had the run of the house. We weren't about to keep her outside. Eventually she succombed to old age and became infirm. We had to arrange for the Indonesian vet who cared for her to come to the house to put her down. Those last 24 hours of her time on this Earth were the most heart-wrenching I think my wife Marta and I have ever experienced. That last night my wife spent the night by her side just holding her and trying to comfort her. And the next morning when the vet came and put her to sleep while in both our arms was devastating. I never want to go through that again.
Congratulations on your wife's pregnancy. Glad to hear you will start a family. Eventually you probably will have another dog as well. Nothing will ever completely replace the one you lost, though. Each beloved pet is an individual that you will always remember fondly, after the hurt goes away.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date May 16 2018 16:15:05
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Piwin
Posts: 3559
Joined: Feb. 9 2016
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RE: Good news and bad news (in reply to Guest)
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Congratulations for the pregnancy!
Sorry for your dog. It sounds like you treated her well and she had a full life, which is all any of us can expect down here.
The first pet I had was the family dog, which we had to put down when I was six. He had dug under the fence, gone exploring in the middle of the night and got hit by a car. He somehow managed to crawl back home and my father brought him to the vet, who put him down right away. The rest of us kids only found out about it the next morning. I was angry that they hadn't waken us up to let us say goodbye. My father has since described the entire scene to me and, I'll spare you the details, but let's just say he spared his children a lot of grief by not letting us see the dog in that condition. Many other pets have come and gone since then. Some, of the feline variety, I don't even know if they're still alive or not. But that's cats in the countryside for you. Sometimes they just run off and do their own thing. They might be kings of vast territories, or they might be roadkill. I just don't know.
I also don't know whether it helps to get another pet or not. I've always had pets. Several. Can't really imagine not having any. It might help in the sense that after a while you do get better at it. It's not that you stop caring or get used to it, but you do get better at it. I'd get another dog if you want another dog in it's own right. But as a way to minimize grief, dunno, doesn't make much sense to me, not really sure how that would even work. I'd give it some time and let the grief run its course before thinking about bringing another dog into the mix. But that's me just thinking about what I would do. Certainly not advice for anyone else. Hang in there!
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
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Date May 16 2018 19:04:13
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: Good news and bad news (in reply to Guest)
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I'm sorry to hear about your dog, Shroomy, and glad to hear a child is on the way.
I loved one dog for a couple of years when I was very young. We had to give her away when we moved into quarters on Randolph Air Force Base near San Antonio. She really did go to live on a nice farm in the country. A few years later we were back living in San Antonio and visited the farm. The dog remembered us--a very happy experience for an eight-year old.
When I was five we acquired Bubba, a Boston Terrier pup. He became a member of the family, and a very well traveled dog as our military family moved from place to place. Bubba was a character. He featured in many family anecdotes. A few years ago my cousin Tommy told me that whenever he thought of us, he "always thought of that little dog, who was part of the family."
I was nineteen and away at university when my father called to tell me Bubba had to be put down. At age fourteen he was almost completely blind and spent most of his time in bed. He suffered a stroke, and was disoriented and unable to rest. Dad had taken him on his last trip to the vet.
As a family we stuck to the English and Scottish traditions of the "stiff upper lip." We didn't carry our hearts on our sleeves, nor spend time feeling sorry for ourselves.
The only other time I heard so much emotion in my father's voice was when I was taking my turn spending the night at the hospital, and had to phone him to tell him his father, my grandfather had died.
More than 60 years later, I have never had another dog. I'm still grateful to have had Bubba for a friend.
Having a child will change you. For me it was an improvement. My first child was my daughter. At the beginning of her life she wasn't getting quite enough to eat from breast feeding. It was a while before the doctor suggested the possibility. One night I was walking the floor with her while she cried loudly and unconsolably. She has never been a shrinking violet. I said to myself, "I'm doing my very best, and it isn't helping at all. This isn't fair."
It immediately occurred to me that there was no guarantee, explicit or implicit, that parenthood should be fair. The experience of absolute commitment, in the face of a discouraging situation, was one of the most valuable lessons life has taught me.
Parenthood has its pluses and minuses. For me, for my sizable extended family, and for most other parents I know, the experience has been overwhelmingly positive. Congratulations on your good fortune. May things continue to go well.
RNJ
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Date May 17 2018 4:19:58
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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RE: Good news and bad news (in reply to Guest)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Shroomy726
Well it's certainly not easy to provide a single dog with everything he/she needs let alone four!
My wife and I work all day so during the daytime, our dog used to get no exercise. I would come home at lunch to let her out, but I always felt guilty that she had to live waiting on us to return. She spent that time napping anyways which was her favorite thing (like my wife lol) and she was also relatively small so there wasn't that much built up energy as if she were a bigger dog.
My brother bought a German Shepherd puppy about a year ago and it is obvious that the dog needs heavy exercise to behave properly. Probably an hour of excercise per day might not be enough!
I have been pondering after our posts, last night.
There is so much to express about us and fellow creature.
In regard of dogs the behavioral subject has determined lately that dogs are fully focused on humans who they rank higher than fellows of their own species. And before that already it had been stated that dogs should not be left alone for longer than about 20 minutes. In spite of them sleeping much of the day.
This being different from cats who sleep a lot too whilst however able to annul several hours of being left alone.
Such bits led me to the conclusion to never keep any animal as single anymore. Owners who can´t be with their pets throughout the day should keep at least two individuals, which helps them a lot to overcome time when their people being away from home.
Last night, like nearly every day, I was once again thinking over the beauty and pity with animals.
To me it is beyond words, what one can see in them. In pretty much any species actually.
When folks utter something like: "I like species X, but not species Y", I tend to point out to them that their affection ought to be based on projection instead of on appreciation.
Because with the latter the charm of all the species comes through and enriches the observer.
And vice versa, what a pity with the billions of poor denaturalized people who can´t feel the beauty of fellow beings. People who deal with them like with a thing or with a piece of meat. Who kick after them, throw stones, beat and torture. (There passes not one single day in which I won´t hear desperate yellings of tortured animals here.)
People who will stay untouched even by the sweetness of puppies and other super cute animal babies. Being emotionally frigid even from early childhood on.
Crippled people, inhumane people, who will exert their characteristics on anyone, including humans and including their own fellows. Monolithic souls empathetic for no one. Ogres.
Worst of all, trillions of creatures exposed to the ogre being all the time. The constant consciousness of the unspeakable tears me apart. It drives me nuts.
But back to pets.
One hour of playing with a dog, even a shepherd dog, is not much, but as it appears to me, not that bad really, provided that he can enjoy one´s daily company for much longer than that.
Because the non playing time counts as well. Constant and meticulous monitoring of his people (even when you won´t notice it at all) is entertaining and assuring to one´s pet as well. And even more so when one shares attention in between.
They ought to be companion. It matters a lot and it will let them unfold.
When they unfold, it becomes incredible to experience their emotional and cognitive capacity. Even sorts that were never meant to display associative skills for stranger species like us.
One of the current viral videos shows a maybe three year old boy with his roofed bobby car, surrounded by maybe 30 or so rabbits. Incredible how curious, funny and undaunted these can be when having been treated gently. They try to enter the bobby car together with the boy, leave it be the minute he gets off and again storm the vehicle when he enters it, and so on. Hilarious!
In the way that we know more about the moon than about the deep sea, our blindness over "Descartes´ automates" is a crying shame for the vast of humanity. Infernal ignorance for beings that some religions justifiedly so rank as angels.
Besides, guess to have mentioned it before. An average dog is being estimated of cognition similar to a two year old kid.
Keeping that in mind, one´s eyes discover enchanting parallels.
Watching dogs under that aspect, one will actually spot "the kid in the dog".
You know, like that stiff toddling a little child shows when proudly approaching you for to present the drawing it just made. Same stiff walk and tail up with a dog when it proudly brings you what it just found. Or the ways you can make it laugh, etc. ... It´s little kids on four legs and in fluffy coats or feathers.
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Date May 18 2018 14:58:09
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