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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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.)