Gone

It has been a long week. Last week we noticed that our dog wasn't acting himself. Normally, he would come in the house at night... grab a hot dog... hang out and get some love... but he was avoiding us almost... Secluding himself in the carport... Moping. We bribed him in one night with some pepperoni sticks. I vowed to take him on some more rides, pet him silly, make an appointment with the vet... but I never got the chance. On Saturday... before I left for work.. Kris found him huddled in the garage.. his cataracts clouding his beautiful brown eyes...he was barely moving... and we brought him in the house and gave him a bath. He didn't splash or protest as we washed his fur and then wrapped him in a blanket and blow dried it out. Kris spent the night laying next to him... carrying him outside to potty.. When I returned home he was seizing and his breathing was labored.... and the vet was scheduled to come in an hour.

Suddenly... the time we had spent with him seemed very brief, as if all the years were condensed in one moment. His life represented my children's childhood.. gone. We reminesced about all of the memories he was in. Walks around our old neighborhood... his happiness to be with us.. his playful nature.. his fondness for roaming our current acreage.

Amanda said a prayer. She asked Heavenly Father to be sure and let him go to Heaven. Then we all gathered around him and said goodbye. We stroked his fur and talked to him... and waited. The vet arrived with her husband. It was suddenly important for me to show her a picture of his young handsome dog self with our young, handsome family. I wanted her to see the groomed perky Wiley as she had only seen him old and sick and overly furry. She shaved his leg and administered the meds and he took one final breath. It was just a sigh and then he laid his head down and slept forever.

He looked like he was just napping at that point.. and so I went to take my nap and keep the happy image of him in my head..... Kris shoveled the gravesite and placed him in the box decorated with love notes from his sisters. Then they all buried him and as you can see from the picture.. decorated his grave with a pinwheel and some other fun things. Kris found Amanda out there later sobbing. It was bittersweet. How lucky are we that we had a pet for 11 years and could really mourn his passing? Some people never love a pet enough to get that experience.

So now we are adjusting to the gone-ness. I still wake up at night and listen for his bark of warning to the coyotes... I drive slowly into the carport so I don't hit him.. We've had several offers of puppies to fill the hole his death has left.. But for right now we don't want to fill his place.. We just are grateful that we had so many years with Wiley. Good, happy years.