It’s a dogs life!
I took one of the dogs to vet today, just for his annual jabs. We always make a point of timing it right to keep their passports valid – who knows what might happen. It got me thinking. Guido is now older than me!
Tragedies (and time machines) aside if life follows the natural order of things we will only know our parents as adults and old folk, and if we are lucky we will know our kids from childhood to middle age. Not so our dogs – for many of us the most loyal, trusted and closest companions we will ever have. People drift in and out of our lives – that’s just how it works – including our children and our parents. Our dogs never leave our sides.
I find it both horrible and wonderful to look at our ‘boys’ sometimes, knowing that one day – unless I get run over by a bus or struck down by some lurking illness – I will have to say goodbye to them. Such a bitter-sweet thought. We enjoy (almost) every minute we spend with them, and it breaks my heart to think the time will come when one of them is lying on that, perhaps that same, table with a not so routine needle heading their way. I will have to share their death as I have their life. It’s not a choice; I would have to be there.
The better I get to know men, the more I find myself loving dogs.
Charles de Gaulle
On the other hand, how wonderful is it to share in the entire life of another living being who has loved us without conditions, without any demands and whose entire happiness comes simply from our company. They come into our lives as tiny helpless little creatures, so cute, so curious and so impossible not to love. We see them change from helpless little babies to adolescents full of energy. We help them learn, and they teach us things about ourselves we didn’t know. They mature and turn into sensible adults, and then we watch them slowly head towards the end. Speaking for myself I owe our dogs, past and present, so much. They keep me sane, they keep me grounded, and they make me smile every day…
Okay, it was only a routine vaccination, and he’s really not that old. But it does make me wonder how many more routine injections he has before THAT one…
March 14, 2014 @ 5:07 pm
This same morbid thought occupies my head from time to time too – glad I’m not the only one. Off home now to hug my doggies…..
March 14, 2014 @ 6:53 pm
Contrary to popular opinion I’m just a big softy really… 😉
May 6, 2014 @ 12:02 pm
Oh Alan that was a tough one to read! Our Geri that came from the UK to Spain with us is 16 next month. She’s practically blind, totally deaf, wees and poos all over the place, but every morning she is still alive is a bonus. I had her from 8 weeks old. They break your heart don’t they xx
May 19, 2014 @ 5:13 pm
It crosses my mind often… Yet our boys are still relatively young.