For 'pet people' who love animals and have had many pets over the years
if you can bring yourself to contemplate it, which was your best loved, most missed, pet of all? How long ago was that and how many pets have you had since?
I have had so many, I always have a multi-pet household... but still, no matter how many times I have faced it - it hurts...Was any one worse? Well I suppose so in terms of how long I grieved... three stand out... Hamlet - an orange kitty, my first brush with renal failure in kitties.. I was pretty devastated when I lost him. mainly because treatment was and should have been available... but not in the UK... that hurt.. I learned so much via that.. Spock hurt because he died alone, and needlessly.. the vet s in the UK aren't very proactive, it's just how it is.. my great vet had ordered a blood transfusion... the emergency vet didn't do it.. he made pretence but didn't do it... that was very painful... and lastly my last feline loss... Mikey.. just because he and i were so close.. I managed his ailments really well for many years... but then I went away for a week and the people I left to look after him didn't do such a great job... and by the time I came home it was really too late.. I just felt that if I hadn't gone away he would have been ok... My most recent pet loss was a koi... i'd had the koi many years, made a new pond but it never worked well, I couldn't figure out why.. fish got sick, I called the vet.. 2 weeks passed with me begging them to come out.. by the time they did it was too late... Again i used the loss to learn.. I built a new pond AND finally got the other pond working perfectly
I sympathize. We feel (I feel) so responsible for their well-being don't we - well, we have mindfully taken their welfare upon ourselves, so we are responsible. It would be comforting to believe there was just that remotest chance we might see them again after death - and reunite.
That would probably be my dog Mulder. He was an Australian Shepard. He didn't like most people and was arguably dangerous, but he was very devoted to me. He died died about five years ago. Everything killed me after he died. I couldn't even look at his doggy door without sobbing. I eventually rounded up all his belongings and took them to the pound for donation... and came home with a black lab.
I like those dogs. They tend to be very owner oriented don't they. Useful animals too - habitually looking for creatures to corral - cattle, sheep, ducks, children. It's in their genes. Some years ago there was one in Australia still living at age 27. An impossible age for a moderate-sized dog you'd think. What made it even more remarkable was that animal was still working. It got into the Guinness book of records. If I had the appropriate environment I might go for a Briard or Spinone. I enjoyed the companionship of a Wire-haired Fox terrier (no, not Fox Mulder) at a very early age - though I only have stories and photographs of me and the dog, no actual memory of it. The animal, she was called Topsy, had earlier belonged to Diana Napier.
Adaydreambeliever 