As most of you noticed, its been a month since the last podcast and there have been a number of issues we have been having to deal with as a family. At the front of the line was Junepi, one of our two dogs, who suddenly began to lose weight and have all kinds of other problems. We finally found that his pancreas had shut down and so today I took him to the vet to be put down. Its always hard to lose a pet, its harder when it was my 11 year old son’s 8th birthday present. The dog wasn’t quite four and they’ve been pretty tight and so we talked about all those death and dying, do dogs go to heaven, I’ll do things for the other dog because Junpei would have wanted it that way.
Needless to say, I have had my cries today – at the vet’s, at home, with my son. Having had to do this before, part of you says its just a dog, it quite another to realize they are a part of the family, and when they are sick, you have to deal with it compassionately. Then you have to try and comfort an 11 year old who wants to know why bad things happen to good dogs and not fall into that stupid crap I have heard at human funerals: “Only the good die young. God needed another another angel in heaven. God was lonely.” Bad things happen, people and animals get sick and die, and God doesn’t make exceptions. So, we are going to chill, look at some pictures, maybe some video, and just enjoy some family time.
The other issues are still there and I’ll say more later, but even a sad resolution is a resolution.
I lost my dog, Samson, about a month ago. He was 8 years old and had cancer in spades. I felt terrible. I left the vet feeling like I had just taken my dog to the dump. Cried all the way home. At 48, I thought I was over that.