"Where to Bury a Good Dog"

Put in my post box today in a card by a dear friend. 

.... "There are various places within which a dog may be buried. We are thinking now of a setter, whose coat was flame in the sunshine, and who, so far as we are aware, never entertained a mean or an unworthy thought. This setter is buried beneath a cherry tree, under four feet of garden loam, and at its proper season the cherry strews petals on the green lawn of his grave.

Beneath a cherry tree, or an apple, or any flowering shrub of the garden, is an excellent place to bury a good dog. Beneath such trees, such shrubs, he slept in the drowsy summer, or gnawed at a flavourous bone, or lifted head to challenge some strange intruder. These are good places, in life or in death. Yet it is a small matter, and it touches sentiment more than anything else.

For if the dog be well remembered, if sometimes he leaps through your dreams actual as in life, eyes kindling, questing, asking, laughing, begging, it matters not at all where that dog sleeps at long and at last. On a hill where the wind is unrebuked and the trees are roaring, or beside a stream he knew in puppyhood, or somewhere in the flatness of a pasture land, where most exhilarating cattle graze. It is all one to the dog, and all one to you, and nothing is gained, and nothing lost -- if memory lives. But there is one best place to bury a dog. One place that is best of all.

If you bury him in this spot, the secret of which you must already have, he will come to you when you call -- come to you over the grim, dim frontiers of death, and down the well-remembered path, and to your side again. And though you call a dozen living dogs to heel they should not growl at him, nor resent his coming, for he is yours and he belongs there.

People may scoff at you, who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall, who hear no whimper pitched too fine for mere audition, people who may never really have had a dog. Smile at them then, for you shall know something that is hidden from them, and which is well worth the knowing.

The one best place to bury a good dog is in the heart of his master."
..........by Ben Hur Lampman

'Letting Go'

Peace at Last

Cuddled gently in my arms, Lily slipped quietly into doggie heaven at 2.30am this morning, assisted by an exceptionally caring vet.

Woken by a massive seizure and seriously disoriented for a long while afterwards, it was a blessed release for us to help her end her suffering.

I got up early and went down to where my lovely man buried Lily at 3am.

The sun was just up, the breeze was still, the dappled sunlight trickling through our little forest onto the fresh turned earth.

My funny old lady sheepies came and stood around me, sensing something profound had happened,

and Chevy came and nibbled my fingers.

We all stood there together and listened to the birds' early morning chatter, and watched a kookaburra swoop low over her grave. Perfect peace and all is well in the world.

 

R.I.P. my darling girl. ♥ ♥ ♥

People Are So Clever

Have a gentle cruise through this You Tube video. See Link below:

Mandelbox Trip

MRI Shows the Damage

Painted on Art Rage while I waited for the neurologist to call after her first seizure..

Lily's condition has worsened over the last month, and after seeing specialist DM at the Melbourne Veterinary Specialist Centre on the 11th of January, she continued to decline. The anti-convulsants she was prescribed made no difference, so he upped the dose.

I took her to have a trial acupuncture at Prahran Vet Hospital in the hope of settling the facial twitching, and we took home herbal tablets as well.

The next day, Thursday 31st January, she had two grand mal seizures, her back legs were no longer co-ordinated so she fell heavily over and over, and her facial twitching was almost non-stop. The specialist was contacted immediately and we made plans for her to see her neurologist when he returned on Wednesday.

The next morning, she had deteriorated so much I believed she would die if we didn't do something immediately, and after a desperate call, the Specialist Centre said to bring her straight down.

She went in for a CSF test and a MRI of her head, which showed a white flare over the optic nerve for her removed eye, indicating inflammation/ infection from the surgery. She has been so brave considering that she has had this simmering away since last July. Dogs are.....

Specialist Kate Heading is getting a radiologist in Sydney to view them to get a more definitive idea on Lily's condition.

She has been put on antibiotics and cortisone and we have decided to put her to sleep if we can't get her some stress and pain free life ahead of her.

We are getting some heartening results so far, her seizures have stopped, the twitching lessened, and she has regained the use of her hind legs, though she dropped like she had been shot after a big jolt this morning, poor dear girl.

The financial cost to us this past week is mounting fast, not counting numerous long trips from West Gippsland to Melbourne, but I am really pleased we decided to go the extra mile, and hopefully given her another chance.

This past week has been the most horrifying to me for a long time, watching my dog suffering the way she has. I never knew I had so many tears in me.