That’s a crappy camphone picture of my pal, Pepper, taken ten hours ago. He didn’t want to eat, so I couldn’t give him a treat. He was too frail to play, so that was out. He was too blind to enjoy a last walk through his yard, so I let him stay inside.
In the end, all he wanted was to drape himself across my foot and sleep. So I sat there, enjoyed his presence, and let him doze for a while.
He’s gone now, and I’m not sure how long it will take for that to sink in. On the way out of the vet’s examining room, after the injection and the good-byes, I glanced back at him on the table and had to fight the urge to run over and grab him… he’s old and blind, you see, and he might fall off and hurt himself.
I want to keep protecting the little guy, even though there’s nothing left to protect. Responsibility and love are habits, and I’m apparently an addict who is facing some seriously fucked-up withdrawals.
I’m going to stop now, since the more I write, the more I want to throw up.
I ordered Pepper’s urn this morning. Looks like we’ll be putting him down by Thursday or Friday… he’s now completely blind, and his appetite has dwindled away to nothing. Poor baby.
If I don’t think about it, I’m not sad. But given that I’ve spent the last few years worrying over the little guy every single day, not thinking about it is just fucking impossible.
Mom called and insisted that I didn’t need to be in the room when they do it, that it’ll make it harder on me. I told her it isn’t supposed to be easy.
I fucking hate surrender. Even to the inevitable.
They had this little tent set up on the outskirts of our Supercenter’s parking lot today. There’s almost always some kind of event going on there, but this was the first time I saw livestock hanging out.
She’s incredibly cute and affectionate, and thankfully, her mother doesn’t mind humans petting her.
The same could not be said for one of the males that wandered just a little too close to the foal… mom took a bite out of him that sent him galloping across the yard.
We looked out the back window a few days ago, and were greeted by our new neighbors. In total, there are five adults and one baby… this is the momma.
My mom’s little buddy (Spike, the white one) came to stay with us this week while she’s on the first unmarried vacation of her life. It’s been interesting. 
On the positive side, Spike’s usually pretty cheerful… tail wagging, happy to see you, all that good stuff. And he’s fairly low maintenance. Cute, too.
On the negative, he has the unfortunate luck to be both less-than-bright and stubborn. It took him a week to learn how to walk up the ramp that leads to our back door, for example, a task that our dog mastered on his second try.
But the real issue is my dad. Dear old Pa treated Spike like shit as a puppy, constantly picking on him and doing his best to antagonize the little guy. The result is that Spikey doesn’t like to be picked up, ordered around, or most of the other things that a small dog in a small house must endure on a daily basis. He’ll snap and snarl, reacting as if he were being harrassed by my dad.
It’s sad that shoddy treatment early has made it so difficult for him as he’s gotten older, because in most ways, he’s a really great dog.
Since we all seem to be in a rather doggy mood lately, a quick link to Betsy Devine: “…In her doggy mind, I’m the one who made all this snow.“
Pepper basically likes snow… while he’s in it. Once he gets back in the house, he hates being damp. Picky little twerp!
Is your dog snow-friendly?
I had just let the dog out when I heard a ruckus coming from the back yard. I poked my head out and saw this young lady braying in a friendly way at Pepper. They checked one another out for a few minutes before he lost interest and wandered away to inspect his domain.
Meanwhile, I grabbed the camera, snapped a buncha shots of Donkey Hotey (our unofficial name for her), scratched her between the eyes, and tried unsuccessfully to feed her a leaf. (She was far more interested in sniffing my hand.)