Today is a really bad day
It's a beautiful day outside. It's a Friday, the weekend is almost here.
I'm crying like a teenage girl getting over her first love. In an hour I am going to call the vet to come here to the house to put my best buddy to rest, to take away his pain. Right now he's laying down next to me, and I'm having a really hard time looking at him.
13 years ago I brought home a gigantic nose and gawky legs somehow attached to a normal size border collie. Streak had been with 6 different homes in his 6 months of living. The wife who owned sheep farm I picked him up from told me she had 9 kids and chronic fatigue syndrome and bought him to watch the sheep for her, he only wanted to be with her. Streak never cared a bit about other animals since they couldn't throw the toy for him. No herding instincts at all. So I gladly took him home.
The first couple nights we tried to keep him in his cage until we learned no, he was a free range dog. He'd sleep in the room with us and except for a few vet visits for surgeries, he'd never be in a cage again. He eventually grew into his nose.
When I say he was the best dog, I mean he was exceptional. He never did anything wrong, he just knew right and wrong. We never had any real property, and really never had a fence. I just walked him with the perimeter limits one time and he wouldn't cross, even when a toy would go over the line, he'd simply stop and lay down until we got it for him. He would protect children even though we had none of our own. He wouldn't play with a toy until he was given it. My wife has stuffed animals that she could place right next to his toys, and he'd never touch them, only his own.
He was a frisbee dog for a long time. He would always bring them back to you and put it in your hand or your lap.
Years went by and he eventually got a little slower. A couple cancers were removed. One on his shoulder couldn't be without removing the leg. That was OK, we'd drain the fluid from the mass out every other day to make sure he was comfortable. That's been just fine up until about a month or two ago when the solid part of the mass completely took over. Arthritis kicked in with a vengeance a couple weeks ago. Four days ago he stopped moving around much at all. He has to be carried in and out to the yard. His back end can't support him when going to the bathroom now, and his kidneys have just started failing him.
So today I do the most important thing I could ever do for my best buddy and I'll make that call. And I'll hold him until the end. The vet will take him to be cremated along with many other people's loved ones, and then spread the ashes somewhere around here on a ranch.
My wife and I, we'll never forget him, that would be impossible. We must have thousands of pictures of Streak, when we're ready we'll make an album or two. Later today I'll have to pack up all his beds and his boxes and boxes of toys he'll never need again and figure out how to get rid of them. If anyone in COS would like them, PM me, it'll be worth the trip to come and take them, or else I'll end up taking them to the shelter.
I'd like to leave everyone with a big smile and to thank you for reading this. It has made me feel a little bit better.
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