RONNIE, I've had a few best friends (the human kind) like a lot of other GetBiggerds;but none have ever come as close as the loyalty and love my dogs have given me throughout my lifetime.
A loving dog becomes a part of the family and is definitely a bundle of love in a furry package.
We have two such packages at present and we all do our best to give them the best living environment possible.
I'm sure that you and your family feel likewise and have been doing the same ... so I offer my condolences on the demise of your family pet.
Here is a poem that I have found most moving which might be appropriate to send to you today.
It may not fit the occasion but it says a lot regarding little critters that we too often take for granted.
Great to see that most GetBiggrers love these little critters too.
Dog's Death by John Updike (1932 - 2009)
She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog! Good dog!"
We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.
Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried
To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.
Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhoea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there.
Good dog.
