FIrst week of August 2021

Summer is flying by.  I mark the halfway point when the goldenrod blooms, and I have seen a few feathery golden sprays gracing the roadside.

 

I whacked my goldenrod back in June.  I told myself it was to encourage a bushy shape, but subconsciously it could have been to delay the bloom and my interpretation of how much summer is left.

 

My beloved lab pit mix, Peko, died.  It was at least a month ago and I have been reeling, sad, lonely, lost, bereaved.  

We acquired him as an adult, supposedly age 2 although appearing older, in 2008, so he was at least 15 and died just shortly before what we called his "birthday" July 22.

His decline was gradual over a few years.  He stopped showing interest in fetching a tennis ball, his favorite game.  He slept upstairs with me every night we owned him until the morning he fell down the stairs a couple years ago. Willow and I had to help him down the next morning, and it was so difficult I decided that he would have to sleep downstairs.

 

His pacing and whining that night in his attempt to come to bed with me was too much-I started sleeping downstairs for rest of his life.

That arrangement varied as time went by.  I had a twin mattress I laid on the floor each night and we slept there together.  Some nights we slept on the couch together, me balanced on the edge since he was a hog when it came to sleeping arrangements. 

 

Sometimes he slept with a cat or two on the other couch. Eventually he couldn't get on either couch without help.  He needed help getting outside.  He went on a special diet to encourage his appetite.  He started having incontinent issues which involved handwashing bedding sometimes three or four times a day.  It was a tough call, whether to rouse him out of a deep sleep and straddle him out the back door, or hope he would wake up and indicate he needed to go out.

At the end I bought disposable dog wraps, which he HATED.  He would not loose control when wearing one. I was home bound for the most part dashing out only briefly for supplies so I didn't arrive home and find him splayed on the floor in a mess.

 

Many people would have had him euthanized, I suppose.   I couldn't do that to him.  I have had dogs euthanzied, and I have had them die at home.  Peko was a tough cookie. He was my best friend.  Even after this much time has passed since I buried him on the hottest day of the year, I can still erupt in uncontollable tears and grief for his passing.

 

I love you Peko, thank you for being part of my life for 13 years.