The Gun Counter

I'm leaving Tuesday morning to spend Thanksgiving week with my girlfriend and her family in Tallahassee. We're leaving the dog with some friends who live about a half hour north of us. Due to weekday work schedules, Sunday afternoon was the most practical time to drop him off. So I won't see him again until next Tuesday.

On the way home, I did some shopping. I thumbed through a copy of Marley and Me.





Why do we let dogs do this to us?

I'm not even going to open Marley and me.......

We just [strike]got[/strike] rescued a German Short-Haired Pointer that was going to be put down. He is a pathetic excuse for a dog - scared of just about everything, bone and muscle skinny, totally cowed and obviously abused. We got him from a trainer who had told the owner that "this dog won't hunt" after he had used him for one hunting season. We don't know what he went through with the owner during the hunting season, but it was bad enough that the very experienced trainer had decided he was not "recoverable".

I'm not at all sure why we have volunteered for this - we had discussed getting another dog and decided that the negatives outweighed the positives at our relatively advanced ages. The wife felt there was a "higher reason" for the telephone call about the dog, and I guess I just miss having a dog around. We have only had him for two days and are already seeing some progress - tail wagging when I give him a dog bone treat - but I am not getting my hopes up. (Old folks don't NEED a problem dependent............)

We end up putting down a dog a week around here, no place to put them.
Most of the time it stinks at best.
But we had a little dachshaund/terrier mix puppy was running around the office the other day.
Our ordinance officer took it home for a while but had to bring him back.
No place to keep it, fairly well behaved and mostly in need of a bath, he went home with me for the night.
Two days later nobody'd called or even checked about him. Amazing how people can treat animals.

Well now he's getting along with the Labradork so he gets to stay for a few more days, until I can get him to another friend who saw a picture and said "mine!"

Good thing he's cute.

And he's already staked out a corner of the bed.

Why do we let dogs do this to us?

I've found it's easier if you have 2 dogs. It is still a gut-wrenching experience to have to put a dog down, but it is slightly easier if you have another one to come home to. YMMV.

Our little guy is 11 next year. Hopefully we'll have a good few more years with him. He seems to manage ok with his one good eye, and he's still pretty active. Although, being a daschund, he gets a hand up onto the couch.

I've been fortunate to only have to put down one dog although I've had to bury a half dozen or so over the years. By the time I finally worked up the courage to do it, I realized I was torturing him by not doing it. But you sure hate to lose an old friend. Two were killed by cars (country road, slight hill, people drive too fast past here), two disappeared (big dog that probably got hit by a car and wandered into the woods, little very old dog may have either become a coyote snack or simply stumbled off somewhere and died), the rest old age.

As someone said (Xavier maybe?) I love dogs. I don't like people who don't like dogs.

"May the Good Lord help me to be the man my dog thinks I am."

I read "Marly and Me" earlier in the summer. I highly reccomend it for any dog lover. Before that, in the spring my old pup passed on, she was almost 11.5 years old. She probably would have lived longer but the lyme disease she picked up years ago weakened her a lot, and we ended up giving her steriods to help regain some muscle mass she was loosing in her rear legs but it wasn't much help.

She went peacefully in March, so I'm glad she didn't suffer. She was a good dog and reading that book reminded me of some of the crazier things she had done.

Still keep a picture of her at work.

I read Marley And Me, and was a bit disappointed. Man buys pup, pup grows to be crazed dog, dog gets old and dies. C'est la vie...

They do get under your skin, though. I grew up with dogs (my dad was a breeder, mostly Boston Terriers), and had them for most of my life. I lost my last dog to cancer nearly ten years ago, and it broke my heart. I haven't had the heart to get another.