Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Sad Day

Had to put down one of our old dogs this afternoon... Larry had noticed he had a swelling near his penis...had to take him in to the vet, and that caused a major problem as he had never been in a vehicle or to the vet..and he didn't like anyone touching him when he was hurt... so i went to the vet today, and got some tranquillizers and a muzzle, came home, doped him up and took him back. The vet, an old time friend, was really good with him... he had a large lump in his belly that wasn't there last week, and as he was 15.5 years old, i decided it was time..
His story was a good one... our neighbour had hired someone to build a fence between us, and I heard them up the hill with their children, but after they left i heard a puppy crying, I thought that the kids had left their pup behind, but then things went quiet, so i figured they had come back for him... and didn't think anymore about it.. the next morning as i went out to do the chores, i found this little black puppy in the sheep pen... he was about 5 or 6 weeks old... so i brought him in, feed and watered him and put him in a wire kennel by the back steps and headed off to work. I called the boys when they got home from school and told them to check to see if the pup had food and water... all i got from them was "what pup"... they had both walked right by him...I laid the law down and told them that we couldn't keep him and that i would take him into the Vet on Tuesday as it was the May long weekend... I was working at the local Greenhouse down the road,and it was our busiest weekend, so fool that i am i went to work with orders to both boys that the pup was to stay in the kennel and they were not to play with it... Saturday was okay, they did as they were told, but Sunday, the man of the house was home, another big mistake on my part..when i got home for work that day, who is laying on the back step but this cute little black pup... and both boys yelling at me... " Dad said we could keep him as he will be a little dog"... that little dog weighted 70 lbs.. I insisted that i name him as i had gotten gyped out of the dog that i wanted... so i called him GYP...he was a good dog at times, he was the kind that just never grew up..a very athletic dog, always jumping.. I can remember going out to check the sheep in the dark and a set of grinning white dog teeth go flying by my head... he would jump on me all the time, even holding a stick won't stop him from jumping on me... he would jump over any fence on the place, so that made it hard to keep him out of the sheep pen, so we took to throwing pebbles at him..and with my arm, i never hit him, but it was enough to keep him moving.. Neighbour down the road had a couple of sweet little girl dogs, one a border collie and the other a chow chow... so there as more than a few collie/gyp and chow/gyp dogs around Merritt..it was hard feeding the dogs tonite, i wanted to put out food for him... he did live a good life, was an outside dog, a good watch dog, and i think having him around keep all the wild life out of the sheep pen... and he didn't suffer.. rest in peace old boy

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