Timber - a eulogy

It is common knowledge that there are two types of people, dog people and the other kind. I have been cursed and blessed to have been for as long as I can remember one of the former. Cursed because I will always be fated to lose my best friends until finally one of them loses me. Blessed because almost all of my fondest memories have a dog bounding around in them somewhere. For some unexplained reason dogs for me seem to evoke some of my strongest emotions, emotions that were welling up inside of me as Timber and I took one last walk, and shared a hug and a heartfelt talk.

Even if she could understand that the hole I was digging was to be her final resting-place I don’t know if she would have fled for in her cloudy eyes the pain was evident. The persistent eye infection, a leaky bladder that hormones could no longer control, pre-cancerous tumors and joints that could barely support her own weight. Even with all this it took my wife who is one of the gentlest people I know to point out that it was probably time, for my vision was as cloudy as Timbers when it came to seeing what obviously needed to be done.

And too soon it was time to do what I felt had to be done by me alone. Twice I had faltered but no more. And as her body lay at my feet and her tail gave a few final wags, wags that had greeted me for twelve years, I could only rationalize that this was an act of kindness. And I was as certain as I could be that it was painless although pain was never something that she shied away from.

Like when she was six or eight months old and going one on one with a boar coon that had to weigh at least as much as her until they were both so tired I could pick up the coon by the tail. Or the time a bear clamped down on her front leg but I didn’t notice until we got home that it was fractured because she didn’t even limp. Or when she got between a dying bear and me and got her side tore up for the trouble. And on and on. Every time out a new adventure. But no more.

Was she perfect? Only in my eyes. But whatever mistakes she did make it was never due to lack of effort. She always gave me as much as she could and she will be sorely missed.    So long girl.