Life

This is from a page I was looking at on a person who had a Great Dane with cancer and how she treated the cancer. You can visit the page by clicking here, and read the essay from the page below.
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The following essay originally appeared in The Oregonian in 1926 and later was included in the late author’s book of essays and poems, “How Could I Be Forgetting.”

“Where to Bury A Dog”
By Ben Hur Lampman

“Where to Bury A Dog”  By Ben Hur Lampman

A subscriber of the Ontario Argus has written to the editor of that fine weekly, propounding a certain question, which, so far as we know, yet remains unanswered. The question is this, “Where shall I bury my dog?”  It is asked in advance of death.

The Oregonian trusts the Argus will not be offended if this newspaper undertakes an answer, for surely such a question merits a reply, since the man who asked it, on the evidence of his letter, loves the dog. It distresses him to think of his favorite as dishonored in death, mere carrion in the winter rains. Within that sloping, canine skull, he must reflect when the dog is dead, were thoughts that dignified the dog and honored the master. The hand of the master and of the friend stroked often in affection this rough, pathetic husk that was a dog.

We would say to the Ontario man that there are various places in which a dog may be buried. We are thinking now of a setter whose coat was flame in the sunshine, and who, so far as we are aware, never entertained a mean or an unworthy thought. This setter is buried beneath a cherry tree, under four feet of garden loam, and at its proper season the cherry strews petals on the green lawn of his grave. Beneath a favorite tree or any flowering shrub of the garden is an excellent place to bury a good dog.

Beneath such trees, such shrubs, he slept in the drowsy summer, or gnawed at a flavorous bone, or lifted head to challenge some strange intruder. These are good places, in life or in death. Yet it is a small matter, and it touches sentiment more than anything else. For if the dog be well remembered, if sometimes he leaps through your dreams actual as in life, eyes kindling, questing, asking, laughing, begging, it matters not at all where that dog sleeps at long and at last.

On a hill where the wind is unrebuked, and the trees are roaring, or beside a stream he knew in puppyhood, or somewhere in the flatness of a pasture land, where most exhilarating cattle graze. It is all one to the dog, and all one to you, and nothing is gained, and nothing lost — if memory lives.

But there is one best place to bury a dog. One place that is best of all.

If you bury him in this spot, the secret of which you must already have, he will come to you when you call — come to you over the grim, dim frontiers of death, and down the well-remembered path, and to your side again. And though you call a dozen living dogs to heel they shall not growl at him, nor resent his coming, for he is yours and he belongs there. People may scoff at you, who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall, who hear no whimper pitched too fine for mere audition, people who may never really have had a dog. Smile at them then, for you shall know something that is hidden from them, and which is well worth knowing.

The one best place to bury a good dog is in the heart of its master.

I received the replacement harnesses today from Premier. I sent them out via overnight on Dec. 5 with a check for $11.90. So it took 13 days for the turnaround. Nevertheless, we now have a full set of harnesses again. Mostly. OK, a half set. But it’s a nice thing, isn’t it? That Premier offers this to their customers. Lord knows dogs chew.

By the way, if you ever buy a Lupine collar, and maybe it goes for their harnesses, too, they will send you a free replacement if you merely send the chewed/broken piece to them. No check required. At least that was the process I went through when one of the easy-click collars broke.

There are some really decent companies in the pet field. Find them, and work with them…that’s my motto.

Today, during my lunch break, I had to stop at Walgreens before rushing home to let my babies take a bathroom break. When I pulled into the very busy parking lot, this little white car came in behind me and parked in a spot I was going to back in. I had pulled forward into a spot that was too small for me, so backed out and the little old lady from that little white car stood right outside my truck door. My window was opened, and I looked at her wondering what she was thinking of doing. She said nothing, so I pulled ahead, and she said, “Aren’t you going to help me?”

I wonder if she was telling me something telepathically before she spoke. My antennae have been down for so long, so if she were, I didn’t hear her.

I asked her in what way she needed help. She said she was lost. I asked her where she was going, and by the time I started to give her directions, there were two cars behind me, so I told her to wait while I parked.

I walked down to her car and she had a lovely German accent, and told me she was following a car that she thought was her husband’s and had been following it for so long until she realized, it wasn’t. Boy, was she ever lost! She was about 3 cities away from where she needed to be, and I explained to her several times how to get to the street she needed to start out on to get home, and I don’t know if she got it or not. I cannot imagine how she gets around. She is a very confused elderly individual. It’s not like a movie where you can fast forward to find out if she made it home OK. Now I’m left here without a clue.

When I got home at lunch, the FDSP was ready for some intense exercise before I had to go back to work, so they played

while I did the usual – prepare the rice for the rice cookers. I started out with one rice cooker months ago, but had to graduate to two recently. The liver and veggie soup had been slow cooking since the a.m. Ginger gets turmeric in he form of curry powder in her rice. Turmeric is one of the many herbs/vitamins I have her on now that she’s healing from cancer. Luigi cannot have turmeric regularly because he is prone to produce calcium oxalate stones in his bladder. So, I prepare the two pots of white rice differently. The good thing is that by the time I walk in the door at the end of the day, the rice pots and the crock pot is finished. Then it takes me about an hour to dole out the food, supplements, herbs, whatever medicines anyone is on, and finally we all stop and say our prayer of thanks.

That is the cutest moment because they all go silent and stop what they are doing and look at me while I say the prayer. After I finish the prayer, the room goes biserk, and I have three barkers to deal with – Annie, Bouchard, and Raven, who all go to different parts of the house for their meals. None is so hard to hush up as Raven though, who is really into eating wood these days besides dinner…especially the pieces she is tearing off my futon. Bless her soul.