Poor little guy

We have four healthy happy puppies left in the litter, unfortunately the poor little guy that had such a rough time at birth didn't make it. We tried to get him to eat from momma then fed him from the bottle. Every two hour for two weeks, he just never gained the strength to make it on his own like the other puppies. I buried him the weekend before last in our family pet cemetery right along side Precious, Syringa, Cedar, and Hugo. He is in the company of greatness.

The one truly sad inescapable inevitability of having pets, is that you will always [usually] outlive them and it will always break your heart. All the dogs we have had lived into their teens with the exception of the little guy. I wonder sometimes if that makes it easier to feel "Well I had a good long time with this dog and he had a great life with our family" or does having a pet that long make it much harder to deal with them passing. I guess that given the choice I rather have the broken heart and all the really good memories that come with having the pet. 

I still remember Hobo, the German Shepherd we had at home, and King, and Snoopy,,,yeah even Snoopy. I remember Fritz the Shepherd that was the family dog after I was old enough to move out and how dad called me up one morning to help take him in to be be euthanized, because he was old and could hardly walk after suffering some type of a stroke or something. One of the saddest memories I had was that day and it wasn't knowing that poor old dog was gone, it was because the first and only time I saw dad cry was when we left the Humane Society without Hugo. Dad didn't let us kids see that kind of emotion and even though I know that he must of had many reasons to shed tears throughout his life I only was witness to it that one time. For me on the other hand, I've cried many times for many reasons. When I was a kid I was known as,  "The crybaby" and was called this many times.  When I got older and had a family of my own I found more than a few reasons to shed those tears. Each time I have not felt shame nor did I care what anyone thought of my spontaneous display of emotion. I sat once on the porch of my neighbors house and openly wept while I waited for him to find the 22 cal. pistol that I would use that morning to put down Hugo our German Shepherd. I didn't want to do it and it broke my heart, but he was old [13 yrs] and he was ready, and I just felt that I owed it to him. He was a great dog, and I simply couldn't let the last thing that he experienced in his life was the harsh lights and strange smells and sounds coming from some Veterinarian Clinic. I just wanted him to be in a place that he was familiar with and knew he was loved, so he may be at peace.

We have five dogs now, not counting the puppies which will be placed into other homes soon. That's five more heartbreaks, but it is also thousands of laughs and and an awful lot of pride and joy and companionship too. Like I said I'll take the heartbreak and deal with it just to have the other stuff. 

I guess I should give the moral to the story, because there has to be a moral to the story, is that dogs can be wonderful fun and they will be gone someday, and it's perfectly okay to be broken hearted but it's also okay to take the chance of another broken heart and someday gat another dog. In the end you'll be see the joy outweighs the heartache, by a wide margin.

One more thing I know about dogs is if you look like a cow the Pembroke Welsh Corgi will herd you, that's why everywhere I go I have at least two Corgis herding me there. Part of the fun of having Corgis.