Ode to Dead Dogs

WARNING: If you have no appreciation for ghastly humor, don’t bother reading this. If the recent death of a family pet still upsets you to the point of tears, don’t read this just yet.

I tend to poke people with my sick sense of humor. Why I’m like this could be another blog post. I’ve suffered the loss of beloved pets far too often — and from a very young age. All sorts of these tragic stories are sprinkled with the macabre that can come with time and perspective.

Let’s take the time my oldest sister came home with a kitten that should have been done nursing, but was interested in the fresh milk my pregnant cat had available. It opened a teat too far for the newborns — and one drowned in milk. My big brother grabbed the dead newborn kitten by the tail and flushed it down the toilet despite my vocal anguish. (Dude, I even bury my fish!)

How about the time I went for a bike ride down the dirt road with my best childhood friend and beautiful Irish Setter? We passed my dad in the garden and booked it a good mile before I turned to see where Pooh was because I heard a car coming. Pooh came out of the deep ditch just as the car passed him.

You might think you know the rest, but what you don’t know is what my dad thought when the teen driver he’d just seen zoom past the garden came back for his help. Since dad thought we kids had been hit, and his fear almost always turned into anger, he picked up my beloved Pooh’s limp body (after making me stop sobbing over it) by the feet and threw it into the trunk. Mortification does not touch this.

Of course, Pooh was buried under the miraculous willow trees that should live forever because of the loving pets (and fish) resting there after nearly countless ceremonies. Only later did I discover that the teen driver was a close friend of the man I’d eventually marry — and the story from his perspective was horribly hilarious. Imagine a dead dog, weeping little girl, and freaked-out dad …

My mom was raised on a farm, and dad grew up not too far from her, so dogs were dogs — and ours ran free a lot. We always had one, but usually two or three at once. We lived on one of the main roads coming out of town — out a couple of miles, so cars were going 55 mph by the time they passed our house. Traffic in the late ‘60s through the early ‘80s wasn’t what it is now, but training the dogs to stay in the unfenced yard was largely unsuccessful in pheasant-, deer-, and bunny-land.

By the time I was in high school, I was done burying dogs, so Koocha was tied. She died peacefully on my parents’ bed at their retirement home. I’ve since graduated at the top of the class with two dogs in obedience school. I mostly bury old dogs these days. Last summer was a particularly rough one. Two of our adopted dogs that had been diagnosed with cancer went to the Rainbow Bridge within a couple of months of each other.

All of this I give to you as background in hopes of receiving your understanding, compassion, forgiveness, and possibly appreciation for the blasphemy that spilled out of my fingers. I couldn’t take it anymore, sat down, and opened a retired hymnal to find the tune to match my vision of elementary-school children standing on risers during a performance — singing and crying at the same time.

Funny, morbid, sick or sad? Let me know how this ditty lands (or if a teacher somewhere dares to give it a whirl):

Puppies, doggies, how I loved thee.
Why, oh, why do you die?
I’ll remember you forever,
and I’ll stop now asking why.

You were given, not forsaken,
to my loving arms to hold.
Oh, your kisses and your slobber,
they never, ever got old.

I remember our first day and
just how much you loved to play.
Now you’re gone, but I can see you
like it was yesterday.

You were lonely, looking for a
place to run and rest your head.
It was not long before you were
sleeping in the big bed.

Now I miss you and I wish we had more
time to share.
I can picture you in my mind
as though you are right there.

Please come back to me in my
dreams and comfort me.
Let me know you loved to know me
and that WE will always be.

Dedicated to the dogs and cats I added to my bedtime vespers during my childhood and beyond (death by car noted *):

Trixie
Blaze
Cuddles
Goober
Crazy
Stuffy
Tut *
Pooh *
Sunshine *
Koocha
Snickers *
Shadow
Rusty *
Newton
Romeo
Juliette
Destiny
Tucker
Charlotte
Shorty
Rusty (already named and adopted from mom)
Buster
(Apologies to the late fish not mentioned — and cats that belonged to my daughter.)