Hey folks,

I just got some awful news. It looks like my cat Henry has kidney failure and isn't going to make it. My wife and I are devastated. This cat is like our baby. He is only 4 or 5 years old, and we expected him to be with us for a long time. It's funny how much of our life together centers around him, how much we talked about him and missed him when we were away and how much attention we paid him when we were home. He is (have to keep reminding myself to speak of him in the present tense, even though there's not much hope) a real character, probably the most affectionate cat I've ever had. I miss him already.

I'm struggling with this right now, and this is one of the first places I've come for support. I know a lot of you have cats and will probably understand. Also, I wanted to explain my sudden disappearance from our ever-fascinating argument. Bunner, you don't win that easily. But seriously, it seems we didn't have a lot left to argue about.

Anyway, those of you with cats or dogs, please give them a hug and be thankful for this day you have with them. I don't have many regrets about that with Henry. Every time I picked him up and held him, and he purred with his head on my shoulder, I felt lucky to have a friend like him. I know that for a long time to come I'm going to be seeing him out of the corner of my eye, following us around from room to room the way he did, like a puppy.

I'm writing this through a fog and am not sure how much sense I'm making. I know we come here for comic relief, and over the last month or so there's been too little of that. Sorry to bum the place out even more, but I need to talk about it. Thanks, all.

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What others say about boorite!

You have my sympathy. I wish I were not nearly 2000 miles away from my doggie, cause I'd love to give her a hug.

I miss my cats, but it makes me too sad to think of them.

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I am a delicate fucking flower. https://beacons.ai/jesskent

I can't think of what to say except "I'm sorry".

I know it must be painful. I don't like to think about the fact that this day will eventually come for me.

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The what mentioned above is total fiction. Please don't take it seriously!

I'm sorry, boorite. Like evil_d, I don't know what to say other than that, so I thought I'd share the story of my cat, in hopes that it helps somehow.

I got Morris when I was seven. He was the cutest kitten, sleeping on my chest at night and suckling on my pajamas while digging his nails into me, in the painful practice I came to realize was love. As I grew older, and too big for the pajamas, I'd still leave them at the foot of my bed at night, and he still slept on them into my teens. Three things in particular stand out as I think of him as a full grown cat. He was beautiful. (He was white with black spots, long hair and lean, and looked like he belonged in commercials.) He had a dog's tail. (It wagged when he was happy.) He was one mean sucker. (He was like a kitty around me, my sis, and my mom, but everyone else better watch their ankles.)

In the mid-90s I went away to college and whenever I'd come home for Christmas break or summer he'd always follow me around. Trying to go in the bathroom when I go. (Knowing he'd get my full attention since the doors were closed and the other cats never went in there.) I used to try to fool him sometimes, pretending to walk towards the kitchen, then cut for the bathroom, but he was usually a step ahead of me. Over the last couple of years I did something I regret now, and would push him out and close the door.

In December of 1999, right before finals, my mom called me up crying. Morris was dead. As I considered myself a tough guy, I was surprised to find myself crying uncontrollably.

And now when I think back on him, despite the good times we had through his 17 years, the first thought in my mind is how I'd push him out and close the door.

Which makes me pet my other cats a little longer. Or push them off my lap less often. Or play with them a little more.

Morris taught me that.

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I ate a hooker half a bottle of knife.

My wife and I think of Diva, a 9-year-old beige and white kitty, as our child. Diva has nearly died twice. Once she had a severe liver ailment and shrunk down to half her normal weight. The vet did not think she'd make it but she somehow pulled through anyway. Then, a couple of years ago, Diva developed complications due to the liver damage that had occurred earlier. We were told that she only had a couple weeks to live and were told that we should consider putting her to sleep to spare her the discomfort that her liver failure was causing (ammonia was not being broken down by her liver and was causing neurological fits). Again, Diva pulled through. (She now only gets to eat low-protein cat food, which decreases the strain on her liver.) A year or so ago, Diva developed a thyroid problem that would have killed her (she could not keep weight on) without expensive medical care. We shelled out $1200 (fortunately, we had that much at the time) for radioactive iodine treatment, and once again Diva made it through.

Diva has been with my wife and I through a miscellany of hellish situations and living circumstances, and I really don't know how I will deal with her eventual passing. I have been on the verge of watching her die and felt that crushing feeling of helplessness. My heart and deepest sympathies go out to you. Trite as it may sound right now, try to remember that Henry has lived well and is thankful for the years you have shared with him. Knowing that doesn't replace the feeling of having him there with you but it might make it a little easier to remember his life fondly instead of just dwelling mournfully on his absence.

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"And Wirthling isn't worth the paper he isn't printed on."

Thanks for that story, ObiJo. It helps a lot.

Thanks, evil_d and LadyJ. I knew you guys wouldn't give me that crap about how he's just a cat. It really means a lot to me.

Yes, Wirthling, I'm thinking about the good times with Henry, trying to find the meaning in his life instead of his death. Many, many thanks.

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What others say about boorite!

Thanks for that story, ObiJo. It helps a lot.

Thanks, evil_d and LadyJ. I knew you guys wouldn't give me that crap about how he's just a cat. It really means a lot to me.

Yes, Wirthling, I'm thinking about the good times with Henry, trying to find the meaning in his life instead of his death. Many, many thanks.

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What others say about boorite!

quote:

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Thanks for that story, ObiJo. It helps a lot.

Thanks, evil_d and LadyJ. I knew you guys wouldn't give me that crap about how he's just a cat. It really means a lot to me.

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I would never say such a thing.

When I was about 13 years old, I had 2 pet white mice that I named Jack and Gus. I later learned that Jack was really Jacqueline. They had a litter of beautiful little delicate baby mice. I didn't know any better, so I changed the cedar and held them in my hand, stroking their little naked bodies. I put them back in the cedar and went on my way. I came back to find them gone. I learned that the adults will eat the young if they smell like predators.

They had another litter some time later, and Jacqueline died. I didn't dare change the cedar again for fear of a repeat performance of cannibalism, so it's possible that the cedar not being changed and the recent death of Jacqueline is what killed Gus. The babies died very soon after.

I cried so hard and for so long that day. My younger sister's friends made such fun of me when she told them.

If I had a choice between saving my doggie and saving my mom from a burning building, I know I'd choose my mom... but then again, I also have more faith in a dog's ability to get out of a burning building under its own steam than a human's ability. They're just cool like that.

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I am a delicate fucking flower. https://beacons.ai/jesskent

i never had a cat, or dog...
but i had a parakeet...
you can't tell their sex until they are adults, so we named them all gender neutral names.
sam
i loved sam
sam and i would play all the time.
he loved to sit on your head, or shoulder, and he'd even clean your teeth like those crocodile nile birds on tv did...
he didn't like fingers, though... fingers could catch, and he didn't like them. but he'd sometimes sit on them if they were very still...
he'd chase his golden bell all around the floor, and even learned to mimick the way we all whistled at him.

and then one day i stepped on him
we were just playing with his bell and he didn't get out of the way...

he was never the same after that
it took a week or so before he stopped shivering. he never looked at me the same way again. he even started rubbing his naughty bits into the carpet when he looked at his shiny bell, instead of chasing it gleefully around the room.

he lived a couple years after the incident, but he was such a jerk. he went blind and would scream at all hours of the night because he never knew when to sleep or not. he'd bite with malice... i never yelled at him though, because i knew what changed him...

poor sam

oh, and my condolances to you boorite.

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"You'll have to speak up, I'm wearing a towel..." - homer

I've been relatively lucky so far in life in that I haven't had to deal with the death of a pet. But I can understand how you feel. Sometimes I look at our dog and I realize that I'm going to have to deal with his passing at some time in the future. And it really frightens me. Just thinking about it makes me a little teary eyed.

Sometimes I feel as though I make stronger bonds with animals than humans. This thread made me think of a summer about 8 years ago when I was visiting my aunt in Wyoming.

She had a couple of dogs. One was a little yippy poodle and the other was a 160 lb. wolf/husky mix named Reno. Small yippy dogs tend to rub me the wrong way but Reno and I got along just fine. I was only there for two days, and my aunt suggested while I was around we take a drive up into the mountains. My aunt, her boyfriend and I, along with the yippy poodle squeezed into the cab of their ancient 60's pickup salvaged from the Forest Service. Reno took up most of the bed. Once settled we headed up into the foothills of the Bighorns.

It was a beautiful day for a drive and we spend a good hour or two meandering up the twisty dirt roads that led up the side of the mountain. We stopped to get out and stretch our legs at a little meadow off the side of the road.

There was a little stream that ran through the middle of the area, no more than five or six feet across. Some crude bridges had been built across it, consisting of a pair of small logs set next to each other and spiked in place with rebar. While chasing each other around like fools, the poodle decided to take off across the bridge to the other side of the water. Reno followed right behind him. Unfortunately Reno was a bit more clumsy and ended up sliding one of his legs through the crack between the two logs. Once it was stuck he ended up tripping and falling off to one side.

I have no idea how he ended up not snapping his leg in two. The logs were a good foot or so off the surface of the water, and his body was half dangling in the stream, the only thing keeping him up being he leg jammed in the bridge.

He made some of the awful keening I've ever heard out of anything, all the while thrashing at the water, trying to get his leg out.

Both my aunt and her boyfriend were closer than me, but were both just standing there, shocked, staring at what was happening.

I ran over and jumped into the stream, which had looked to be no more than a foot deep when I'd glanced at it earlier. I was a little surprised when I immediately sank up to my waist in freezing cold water that had most likely been snow not long before. I waded over to Reno and hoisted him up, managing to work his leg free. 160 pounds of wet, squirming dog is not an easy thing to be carrying around, I can assure you.

I dropped him on the bank and in typical stoic dog fashion, he gave a cursory lick or two to his leg, as well as a couple to my face, then padded off across the meadow with only a slight limp.

I drove by the nursery at which my aunt was working to say goodbye to her. But when I stopped by her house to pick up my stuff and say goodbye to Reno, I found myself crying at the thought of leaving him. I sat down in the yard next to where he lay and spent ten minutes or so just scratching him behind the ears and watching the clouds float over the mountains in the distance.

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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.

These animals that share time and space with us are companions through everything. They are empathic familiars. My own dog grew too old to walk and had a few tumors growing. I made the decision to put her to sleep after we shared from 1981 - 1998 together. I may have waited a month too long - she may have suffered too long - others might think you should never do it. The vet came to my home and I held her head as he gave her the shot. She startled only for a moment and then melted away into... what... I can't say. I cried on her for a while and let her go to be cremated. I have her ashes today.

My wife's cat is getting old but still kicking. I fear the day.

We have kids. Loving pets is not crap. Maybe I wouldn't run back into a burning building for the cat like I would for the kids, but maybe that is my flaw. May events be as smooth as possible during this hard time for all concerned.

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"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

I guess mine is just starting out really.

Barcode (black cat , white stripe under the chin) is the source of my sanity (and i live in Scotland , youd be amazed how hard that is to keep) , and hes just coming up on 6 months now. Hes a pain in the arse like nothing ive ever experienced. Destroys things for fun , climbs to areas he shouldnt be , hides in places i cant catch him.

I wouldnt know what to do without him. :)

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"Life Sucks, Then you Die. The bit inbetween isnt very funny either"

One of my cats got run over four years ago. This guy brought her to the door in a plastic bag. I remember my other cat curiously nudging the corpse, as though trying to bring her round. It's a strange tableau I'll always remember.

We found out earlier this year that Katrina, our 13-year old Maine coon, has hyperthyroidism. She was getting increasingly cranky and drinking gallons of water. Luckily, we've been able to correct the sitution with a prescription. (What? what do you mean my health insurance doesn't cover the cat? She's a dependant!)
Still, it's hard to realize that she's not going to live forever. My sister had a cat that kept going for 19 years, so we can only hope.

I've never been much of a pet person myself... too much responsibility, I guess. But Katrina and Snuggles were non-negotiable items when I met my wife -- they were part of the package deal. Now I can't imagine life without them (and I have only lived with the animals for about 2 years now).

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...Trot and Cap'n Bill were free from anxiety and care. Button-Bright never worried about anything. The Scarecrow, not being able to sleep, looked out of the window and tried to count the stars.

Sorry to hear about it...."just a cat"...bah. I cried when my pet rats died, and they weren't near as personality laden as cats. When my cats go, I'll be a mess, I'm sure. You have my deepest sympathy.

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When they invent BookFace, I'm -there-.

It's amazing how those nasty little furballs become such an important part of your life. I just lost my orange tabby tomcat "John Thomas" a year ago. I got him about 9 years ago as a case during my orthopedics rotation. He was a fanbelt cat, that is he was asleep on top of an automobile engine when it was cranked up. The long bones of his left rear leg were fractured and he had several areas where the skin was ripped off. He was a mess but in spite of that he continued to be a very good natured cat. When I first examined him, I could not hear his heart as he purred so loudly. So I took him as a case and as a pet. I helped in the orthopedic surgery that fixed his leg. (However he did gimp a little for the rest of his life.) He continued to be a happy cat even through the months of wound cleanings and bandage changes. He was generally a healthy cat, although he seemed to have a built in clock that sent him to the hospital once every two years. Once for urinary blockage, another time for hepatic lipidosis. He was an expensive "free" cat. Through the years he was a good companion. He would stay by my side when I was home. He was everybody's friend, no unoccupied lap was safe. Even the clinicians who saw him through the years, said he was the best patient. The last time he got sick was when he contracted a fungal infection in his lungs. However the disease was too far advanced that treatment with antifungal agents (which is slow and sometimes ineffective) was not helping. He finally got too weak to get up from his bed and I finally had to euthanize him.

I've seen many animals euthanized or die, but I could not help but cry when I had him put down. I still get teary-eyed thinking about that orange and white furball.

But I guess the celestial commitee has their own plans. About two months ago a sweet black and white kitten showed up at my door lame in the rear legs. I took him in to the emergency room to determine whether he could be treated or whether he needed to be euthanized. Neuro exam led to radiographs which led to blood tests which led to ultrasound. After a few tests here and a few tests there, it seems that I have acquired another expensive "free" cat. (To the tune of about $2000.00) Well I'm happy with my new friend "Tux" and hope to have many long years with him.

(Almost) True Veterinary Tales, Part I by israphael 9-23-01

So this cat presents with lameness in the rear limbs. We rule out a broken back and herniated disks with radiographs and a myleograms. Still not knowing what it is, we ultrasound the abdomen and find a huge fluid filled mass. We drained half a liter of pus. We still don't what kind of bacteria it is, since it's so slow growing. I'll bet you it's Actinomycetes. Yeah had a case of that recently. Took 250 mg of Ampicillin three times daily for 9 months to clear that up. Tell me again, why did we marry veterinarians? Certainly not for the dinner conversation.

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"Nothing expresses the brutal grandeur of rectal polyps and anal fistulae quite like the mother-tongue of Goethe."

My brother is eleven years my senior, and for most of my childhood he lived with our great grandparents (it was after my parents separated that he wanted to live there, since they were just a walk through the woods away, there was no problem with it). As long as I remember, he had a calico named simply "Kitty." That cat loved him a lot, and it would let him do all sorts of things to her... I remember he used to hold her upside down by the legs occasionally, and she just would go limp and wait to be put down before rubbing up on him all friendly-like. Anyways, being a little kid, I often would chase the cat around the house when I visited. It was afraid of me, and I can't blame the thing, really. But a strange thing happened after a while...

After my brother had been away at college for a few years, and my great grandmother had her first stroke, I was at that house and there was Kitty... I'd outgrown being a little bastard, and instead, I just sat down and looked her in the eyes, and she looked at me, and it was like with that visual excange, she forgave me for being a little prick all those years. By then she was an old cat, but she still loved to play like a kitten and I found myself going to my great grandmother's house more and more often just to see Kitty. She became a very good friend very quickly. This friendship only lasted a few months, maybe half a year, though... one day as I was in the house, she came up to me, and got on her back, showing me her belly... she had a *very* large open wound in her abdomen. We supposed that one night some local dogs chased her, and she tore open her stomach on a nail in the remains of an abandoned house nearby.

My mom took her to the vet, and when she came back she told me that the doctors put kitty to sleep. I felt absolutely terrible... not only because I'd just lost a friend but because I'd spent so much of my youth being a bastard to the thing, and that if only I hadn't been such a retard that I could have had more time to spend with her as one.

You know... I'd almost forgotten about kitty. This was a very long time ago... but typing this has made me just as sad as the day she died. I can't belive it, but I'm crying right now.

Don't worry, boorite... you're not the only one who's sad. I feel for you.

My family has always had pets. Cats, fish, dogs, lizards, and birds. So many of them strays, others orphaned by owners who wouldn't or couldn't keep them. The first pet that I myself got were a few guppies I'd won at a local fair when I was 6. My three year old little brother liked them too so he built them a house of legos and put them in it. Dead Guppies. To this day we have NO idea how he managed to catch them all. They weren't exactly hand fed.

I owe my life to one pet, Giggs, A beagle/bassit hound mix that stood 3 feet at the shoulder. Huge dog. Very loving though, mellow, protective, and so patient with three maniacal children always pestering him. We had a game of pulling on his ears and instead of snapping, he would lower his head and gently nudge us to the floor. When I was 4 I went wandering into the woods as I was apt to do. Understand that this was in Washington state and it had been a particularly rainy spring. The little creek I liked to play at was usually only knee high. It was swollen from the rains to at least 8 feet deep of fast running water. The muddy bank I was on started to give way and I began to slide down into the creek. Giggs heard my shriek and showed up just in time for me to grab his collar or I would surely have fallen in. He didnt shake his head or try to get away from my grasp, nor did he try to pull me up, as his footing was also poor and in the attempt we would have both fallen in. Instead he planted his feet firmly and started howling as only he could. This immediately allowed my mother to locate me after frantically searching for me after i took off. She pulled us both to safety and took us home to clean up. Giggs didnt leave my side for two weeks until it seemed he was sure I was going to be safe. To this day my mother will remind me of when Giggs saved my life. After that I never pulled on his ears.

Two years later we were clearing trees from our land when he wandered too close to a falling tree and got crushed. The whole family rushed to him, lifting the tree and freeing that poor dog so we could rush him to the vet. Actually he was quite lucky. We thought it was a spinal injury but it was a broken leg and a crack in his pelvis. Tough old guy made a full recovery and lived to the rip old age of 18 before cataracs and athritis made it impossible for him to leave his bed. So we took him to the vet and had him put to sleep. Even cousins I'd not heard from in years called to console us, such was the love he had generated in others. Even to this day a tear comes to my eyes when I think about him.

I've had a few cats as well, usually strays my mother took in. When I was 20 I moved to Seattle to live and work on my own. I missed the family pets terribly so I decided to get a cat. I went to the humane society as I didnt have much money and I've always found great pets there. Most of the cats seemed rather frantic and most passed in their cages mewling incessently. All but this one. She just sat there looking at me with her emerald green eyes. I put my hand on the cage and she very gently placed her right paw on my finger without making a sound. I fell in love with her that instant. Turns out the staff had taken a fancy to her as well and called her Sweetie. The name was so perfect I didn't have the heart to change it so Sweetie it stayed.
She was only 6 months old when I got her and had a way of getting in trouble. Once she climbed the highest tree in the neighborhood and of course made it to the top. It was coming down that was the problem. So after a few minutes of calling to her and realizing she wasnt coming down without help, I brought out the big ladder and climbed to within 10 feet of the top with the neighbors watching this spectical with no little amusement. As I held out my hand to try and coax Sweetie down, she decided it would be easier to jump than climb and I barely caught her. That thoroughly terrified her so she then climbed down my arm inch by painful inch to my neck where she wrapped around like a living stoll. My neighbor was laughing so hard he spit beer out his nose.
After three years in Seattle I moved back to my hometown to attend community college and Sweetie came with me. I was only back for a month before a knock came on my door one early morning as I was getting ready for classes. It was my neighbor from across the street telling me that he had just witnessed two punk kids in a huge 4x4 puposely run over Sweetie. My heart jumped into my throat and I fought back panic to check and sure enough there she lay in the street, barely warm to the touch but utterly broken and still. I immediately broke into tears as I gathered her crushed body in my arms and buried her deep in her favorite place in the rose garden. Knowing the two punks in the 4x4 would never suffer any real consequences for what they did I slashed all their tires. It was a joyless act and didnt really make me feel any better but at the time needed to be done.

I miss my pets. I can't have any where I live and it does make the passing days a bit lonelier. Sweetie would be 12 this year had she lived and I miss her terribly. Pets are such a wonderous part of our lives and how easy it is to take it for granted. So long as we treat them well they will love us unconditionally, they never judge, nor condemn. They are there when we need a friend to talk to and provide comfort just by being a scratch or rub away and when accepted wholly into your heart, truly become a friend and member of your family.

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At least im still funny .....looking. http://www.carrionfields.com

Thanks for all the support and the stories, everyone. I knew I could find that here.

I'm in pretty rough shape today. Stress goes right to my stomach, so I haven't been able to keep anything down this morning. Hard to believe I could get this upset about an animal, but I feel very much as Spankling said. Losing your familiar really takes it out of you.

We've already decided we're going to get a kitten soon. Some people decide never to risk it again, but we can't picture life without animals. My wife says Henry would be happy to see us taking care of his brothers and sisters.

Thanks again, everyone. I feel lucky to be a member of this group.

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What others say about boorite!

If I ever saw someone do that to any animal, mine or not, I think it would take an awful lot of self-control to not chase them down and beat the living shit out of them.

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100 pounds of shit in a 25 pound sack.

We have two cats (Spectre and Muesli) and a dog (Pip) at the moment, though we have recently been adopted by a third cat. We thought he was a kitten, as he is such a little fella, but I took him to the vet to be desexed, and was told he is probably three years old. He got his first round of immunisations, and will be desexed in about a month. At that point, I will allow him to come into the house (as a fully-functional tomcat, we have already seen him spray a few things, most notably the cat carrier I put him in to take him to the vet - almost two weeks later, the car still reeks of cat's piss).

He has been through a tough life, by the looks of him. The left side of his face is paralysed - the ear doesn't move, and seems to be deaf, his left eye only moves a bit and rarely blinks, and he even meows through only the right side of his mouth. Turns out one of his big canine fangs had been snapped off, too, so we suspect a car impact. His paws and legs are amazingly worn, too. Despite all this, he is a very sweet-natured cat. I have named him Columbo, since his paralysis gives his eyes a Peter Falk-like wonkiness.

We had a few different dogs around the house as I grew up, but one, the last one, was really special. He was named "Dog" by my grandfather, but he pronounced it "Dawg", so that's what we all called him. He was a small, brown, fluffy thing who just adopted my grandparents one day - strolled happily into their yard and settled right in - so we have no idea how old he lived to be. I know he was at least eighteen, though I suspect he may have topped twenty years. He was a sweet and affectionate old thing, and amazingly smart. He never came close to being run over - he would cross the road by stepping to the edge of the parked cars, looking left and right carefully, crossing to the middle, looking again, then crossing the rest of the way. He was a horny old bugger, too. I remember once he disappeared overnight, and we were all worried about him. Dad called the pound and, following a hunch, asked if any neighbourhood bitches were on heat. He got an address, drove over, and there was old Dawg, looking very pleased with himself.

I was up in my home town over the weekend, and Dad and I got talking about old Dawg. Dad got teary-eyed when he told me how upset he was to find the poor old fella outside the front door one morning, snout all bloody, the verandah smeared with blood. I have that picture seared into my memory too - he looked almost apologetic... "Sorry about this, but I'm sick. Could you make me better, please?" (Shit, I'm crying now, and this happened a decade ago.) The vet said that a tumour had haemorrhaged in his nose, and no surgery was possible. Dad brought him home, we said our goodbyes, then he took him back to the vet and he was put down.

Dad buried him under a rose bush in the back yard. (Funny story - while digging the hole, he brought up a few pieces of a much older dog, before my time, buried in the same place. Dad was kind of happy that the two dearly loved pets would be mixed together in the ground.)

I kept seeing old Dawg around the house for years to come, and once I saw him quite clearly for a moment, wagging his tail and grinning his doggy grin. He was a dear old thing, and I believe he is still there in my parents' house, keeping an eye on us, as silly as it sounds.

*sigh*

What a nice old dog he was...

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This signature has performed an illegal operation and has been shut down.

If I ever saw someone do that to any animal, mine or not, I think it would take an awful lot of self-control to not chase them down and beat the living shit out of them.

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I kept toads as a young boy. I fed them grasshoppers and other bugs that I caught in fields. They lived in a deep pit I dug in our back yard - deep enough so they couldn't leap out. One day I found a few of them turned inside out. Someone had taped M80s (1/4 stick of dynamite if childhood lore is to be believed) to their bellies and lit the fuses. I was too small to beat him up, but I bruised the crap out of his arms as he back peddled and kept trying to push me away.

All I remember is a vail of tears and red rage. My hands hurt the next day and after that he staid away from my toads.

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"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

I Laugh Everywhere (it helps me heal) by Spankling 10-30-01

It has come to our attention that there are a lot of mistreated animals out there. To be blunt, we have been moved to do something about it. That's right, Gabe. As leaders in this virtual community we have taken it upon ourselves to help right this wrong. But where to begin? It seems like there is so much to do and so little time. We had to focus. And that is why today we open the home for wayward donkeys. You were expecting maybe little flack jackets for toads?

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"Jelly-belly gigglin, dancin and a-wigglin, honey that's the way I am!" Janice the Muppet

I had a lot of pets when I was younger, and the one I really got attached to was the parakeet I owned in first grade. He(?) was a blue one called Fifer, and was the friendliest pet I've ever owned. We'd let him fly around the living room for a while every day, and all you'd have to do to get him back in his cage was hold up a hand, and he'd fly over and land on you. When Fifer was a few years old, one day we took the cover off of his cage and found him lying on the bottom. My mother and I were both torn up by it. I went through about the same thing with my pet rabbit a few years later. Since then, we haven't gotten any pets, just taken care of the feral cats in the neighborhood.

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"Only things I approve of should exist." -some guy on the internet

I never really had any pets. I've had an on again - off again allergy to cats since I was a kid, and my mom had a dog for a bit, but I wasn't living at home much by then. I get the whole idea of pets much like I get the whole idea of families. I see people who have them and what it means to them. I understand that. I may not get the whole thing on the same level, but I do understand that you are losing a friend and I am sorry for that from the bottom of my heart.

*hug*

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I wanted my half in the middle and I wound up on the edge.