Wacky Dog, My Friend
Wacky Dog is gone. I had to take him to the vet last night because he was sick again and they don’t know why. His exam was fine, his tests have been fine. And it was complicated by doggie senility (he was 11 or 12). And all of the crazy, wacky, kooky, awful and awesome stuff that made him both the best and the worst Wacky Dog in the whole world had gotten a lot worse. You couldn’t leave him outside and you couldn’t bring him inside. I keep thinking it wasn’t time. Because I wanted more time. But there is never a good time, we know that. He was not doing well. And he was my dog. As much as my husband and the kids claimed him, he was my dog. So I had to decide and I am miserable now.
Here are some pictures of him. I don’t want them full-frame, but you can go look at them.
I have no perspective on this. He was my best friend and always listened to my problems and even when I would get so frustrated and furious with him (for destroying our house, our yard, my sanity. for eating wood and puking it up. for peeing on my leg) he would still come up and nudge my hand. You know how dogs can never tell when you’re coming home? Since they don’t how to read a watch? I love that about dogs. Because you can be gone for five minutes or five weeks and you’re going to get the same exuberant greeting when you return. So what I am hoping is that all those times I yelled bad dog at him or was mean to him, that maybe he forgot that, too, the way he forgot that I’d always come back home after I left. Even if he remembered every slight, I know he forgave me.
I loved him always and I hated him occasionally and I am feeling so awful because of that. It was like taking care of a chronically ill relative. After awhile, you have caregiver fatigue and find it difficult to make decisions and then once you do, you regret it. Or you wish them gone (not dead, just gone) and then they’re gone and you feel like hell even more.
I have written about him so much.
His life in the witness protection program
His ginormous fear of fireworks and bubblewrap
His dislike of Halloween costumes
His health problems
, 
.
Sorry you lost wacky dog…Its hard losing a lovable pet that manages to wriggle his or her way into your heart. May Wacky Dog live on in the blogosphere.
February 16th, 2007 | #
Thank you. He is (not was, is) the Beloved Pooch of his Internet fan club. That kind of thing can live on even after you’re gone, you’re right. I can’t stop bawling my eyes out and I feel like I’m missing a limb — he was always attached to me. I once took a job specifically because they let me bring Wacky Dog to work with me.
February 16th, 2007 | #
My heartfelt condolences on the loss of Wacky Dog! I know what good pals dogs can be, cuz one lives with me {she’s 13, so I know my time is coming.:(}
My youngest daughter recently got a cat. She said, “Having a pet is like setting yourself up to be sad – cuz some day they’ll die.”
My oldest daughter and I said, in (unintentenional) unison, “It’s better to have loved and lost, then never to have loved at all.”
February 17th, 2007 | #
Thank you, Lib.
February 17th, 2007 | #
Sorry, WM.
February 17th, 2007 | #
Planet Edj,
Thank you.
WM
February 17th, 2007 | #
We will miss you, Wacky Dog. You were such a big ol’ sweetie. You left your paw prints on our hearts, and we will never forget you. Wacky Mommy, here is a big hug for you. I am so sorry you lost your furry friend.
February 17th, 2007 | #
We will miss Wacky Dog. Especially Zipdog. She will miss tossing tomatoes to him.
Here is a poem that says it all, by Ben Hur Lampman. xxxoo Zipdodah
“Where To Bury A Dog”
There are various places within which a dog may be buried. We are thinking now of a setter, whose coat was flame in the sunshine, and who, so far as we are aware, never entertained a mean or an unworthy thought. This setter is buried beneath a cherry tree, under four feet of garden loam, and at its proper season the cherry strews petals on the green lawn of his grave. Beneath a cherry tree, or an apple, or any flowering shrub of the garden, is an excellent place to bury a good dog. Beneath such trees, such shrubs, he slept in the drowsy summer, or gnawed at a flavorous bone, or lifted head to challenge some strange intruder. These are good places, in life or in death. Yet it is a small matter, and it touches sentiment more than anything else.
For if the dog be well remembered, if sometimes he leaps through your dreams actual as in life, eyes kindling, questing, asking, laughing, begging, it matters not at all where that dog sleeps at long and at last. On a hill where the wind is unrebuked and the trees are roaring, or beside a stream he knew in puppyhood, or somewhere in the flatness of a pasture land, where most exhilarating cattle graze. It is all one to the dog, and all one to you, and nothing is gained, and nothing lost — if memory lives. But there is one best place to bury a dog. One place that is best of all.
If you bury him in this spot, the secret of which you must already have, he will come to you when you call — come to you over the grim, dim frontiers of death, and down the well-remembered path, and to your side again. And though you call a dozen living dogs to heel they should not growl at him, nor resent his coming, for he is yours and he belongs there.
People may scoff at you, who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall, who hear no whimper pitched too fine for mere audition, people who may never really have had a dog. Smile at them then, for you shall know something that is hidden from them, and which is well worth the knowing.
The one best place to bury a good dog is in the heart of his master.
by Ben Hur Lampman
February 18th, 2007 | #
Oh, N, I am so sorry.
February 18th, 2007 | #
thanks, you guys. I feel a little bit okay today, but still very lonely and crying. This sucks.
February 18th, 2007 | #
I’m so sorry.
I have a cat with a constipation problem and I completely understand how you describe feeling.
I hope you start feeling a little better soon. ;-)
February 20th, 2007 | #