Goodbye, Honey

Our little dog Honey died last night. She was twelve years old, and had been showing her age lately. She seemed quite stiff in the mornings, and I tried to give her baby aspirin to ease her aches and pains, but there was absolutely no way she would swallow that little pill! Strange, eh? when she would eat a dead mouse or any other yucky dead things she came across. Real dog behaviour!

This past week there were times when she looked so dull. Instead of running to greet me when I returned from my morning walk, she kind of trudged down the driveway, tail wagging, but no zip to her step.

Sunday afternoon when we returned from a little jaunt she didn't come running to complain that her food dish was still empty. We found her lying in the shrubbery. Jim first thought she was dead, but when he called her, she turned her head to look at him, but didn't get up. Later when I went to check on her, I couldn't find her.

This morning her food was still untouched, and she wasn't in her bed in the garage. Later on I found her lying among the perennials in a flower bed, sprawled out the way she always did when she was taking a rest. But this time her rest was permanent.

We buried her with her collar and tags, looking very peaceful.

It seems strange that she's not around to come and jump around in front of me, letting me know that it's dinner time. She could make the strangest noises for a dog--wild complaints that we'd been gone all afternoon, and she was lonely. Honey loved to bark at the unseen wildlife in the bushes. The time the coyote came for dinner she had a fit! I posted that on my second blog post in February of 2009; there's a picture of her giving the coyote a scolding. But Honey never growled. She was just a friendly little dog, and now she joins Sam, the cat, as a fond memory.