Mugsey My Golden Labrador Update

I was with Mugsey this morning @ 10:15 when he was put to sleep. He was worse. I asked the vet about other treatments but he said there was no hope, if it was his dog he would have him put to sleep. The vet had taken Mugsey to his HOUSE to put him in the hot tub twice because he thought that might do some good and would help him be more comfortable @ least. The vet shed a tear too. He said a cart was an option but I knew Mugsey wouldn't be happy and he was incontinent and just miserable.
Mugsey was fine, not scared, the medication made him shakey. He wasn't as good though as when I took him in. You never realize how much of your life is tied up in an animal till you lose them. I complained about him flopping over and hitting the box springs on the bed from the floor every night and jarring me awake. I would love to feel that again. I petted him for like 20 minutes before the vet got there and every time I would stand up from crouching down he would try to stand up to go with me. That was the worst I think.

I am fine. I've talked to my husband several times today. We are getting Mugsey's ashes back and scattering them over the farm where he loved to run (husband insisted even though it costs more and husband is shall we say thrifty). I hugged the vet and I am NOT a hugger. The vet tried to give me a beagle that was throwing a fit because she didn't like being cooped up and tried to give me a white lab that someone had dumped by his house pregnant last winter. My husband said he wants a puppy IF we get another dog soon. I can't hardly bear the thought but I know there are 1000's of puppies that need homes.

I'll never forget when we got Mugsey I was delivering lunch to the crew when they were cleaning up after Katrina. My stepson said what about the yellow puppy when I got there, I said what yellow puppy, I saw him and that's all she wrote, my husband fell in love instantly too, he's the one that suggested I look @ him to his son. Mugsey turned into a sweet lovable clown that got in trouble quite frequently but we learned to adapt. When he wasn't doing his jumping running dance of joy around the car when I got home I thought something was wrong. I wish I'd petted him more and given him more treats. I got a garbage bag out and saw a cabinet with big dog treats in it and no big dog.

I think I feel guilty because I didn't always put Mugsey first after he was grown, but he liked to be outside and he came in when we were home, he would get in trouble for chasing cats and dragging things in the yard, his pile of treasures just disappeared recently, rocks, sticks, bones, and empty plastic bottles. He was my husbands dog too but he only had him overnight by himself once, he's been with me the rest of the time. I feel bad too because it was my husbands dog (supposedly) and my dog (Dispatch) is fat sassy and healthy. I've got more pictures of Mugsey than any other dog besides Dispatch and I've had 3 times as long to take pictures of Dispatch. I've cried more for Mugsey than I ever have any other dog too (and most people who have died), but usually if they are killed or die it's quick. I feel bad because I didn't buy him more stuffed animals to destroy, he loved nothing better than to chew a hole in a stuffed animal and start pulling stuffing out, would keep him occupied for hours.

I must get to other things, I've been trying to work and cut back on bad habits and loafing (reading and napping), I need to make today go by fast.

Mother hides guinea pig death, would you?

Link to Cnn story here.

It seems a mother hid a guinea pigs death from her 3rd grade son because he would be upset and had multiple tests in the next two days.

I've never done this. Most of the little furry things we had in the house survived when the kids were little. We had one hamster but I think I missed his death by being @ work and the girls were teenagers? I accidentally ran over my 5 year old daughters dog once on the way to the school bus because I swerved to avoid another car and I didn't know he was racing my car on the driveway. She wasn't horribly upset, in fact it's a family history story, she asked in her cherubic blond way "Are we going to skin him and eat him Mommy?" You have to understand we did NOT kill or eat dogs or cats for that matter. We did kill the flock of chickens because I'd discovered most of them were roosters and didn't feel like they should live all winter getting fat and tough and mean. We live in Missouri also and killing deer and turkeys is a time honored tradition and I usually got the job of skinning and butchering or @ least helped. We were too poor to afford the meat locker option. So the kids point of view was sort of understandable but you can imagine my shock when she asked that particular question?
My other daughter loved black animals, we lived on a farm with her grandpa and grandma in a different house and it seemed like we always had puppies or kittens, she always claimed the black ones and they would die. Not be killed necessarily but succumb to a mystery illness or just disappear. She always named them Blackie. After about 2 puppies and 3 kittens named Blackie the name became off limits and we got a black terrier and named her Cujo. Cujo survived for years and years, the spell was broken, Cujo weighed about 15 lb. soaking wet. We still won't name animals Blackie.
For the next story you have to understand I was a very independent child, my mom worked or went to college all the time it seemed like (or was with her family her brother was dying though we didn't know it @ the time) my dad raised me a great deal of the time and he had a business on the farm, a fix it shop, big metal building, he worked on everything from TVs to combines, to big trucks and tractors, mostly tractors and trucks though, and a dairy with 30 Holsteins. He had 2 or 3 employees @ one time so from the time I could turn on the TV and be depended on not to kill myself and watch for traffic on the driveway I could wander between the shop and the house and barn and about 200 ft. from the buildings. I learned to warm up lunch when I was like 6 and I don't remember learning to drive, I was too young and my mother always said they had me because my dad didn't like the way she drove a tractor? This was the early 60s.
When I was a child I had various animals, only one dog was mine, Shep, but more on him later. I think it was one of Shep's puppies this story is about. He was a curly little white and black English Shepherd, cow dog all around farm dog, we had had him for a month or so and one day I was playing in the yard before Daddy came home for lunch (I think I was 5 or 6) and I saw something funny in the driveway not far from the house. It was the puppy and he had been ran over and there were flies all over him. I didn't cry, it was shocking and horrible but I went in the house and turned on the cartoons that used to come on @ noon. I almost think I was afraid it was my fault somehow, I'd played too rough with the puppy or done something wrong. Can we say avoidant paranoid personality? My dad came in the house and told me he had something bad to tell me, he gathered me in his arms kneeling in front of the TV and told me the puppy had been ran over and was dead. He actually cried which was the most shocking thing that happened, I'd never seen him cry before, men didn't cry back then @ all, I don't think I'd ever seen a man cry much less my big dark burly father. Putting it all together now I'm not sure he wasn't upset because my uncle was ill but my father loved dogs too. He had 29 hounds for hunting when he and my mother were married, a year after they were married it was down below 10. She wasn't a dog person. Anyway I never told my parents that I can recall that I'd found the puppy first and hadn't cried or really done anything but switch on the TV.

Not saying the mother in the CNN story did anything wrong or my parents or I did it's just the different ways we approach life.
Can't find a picture of my dad @ the time of the story, this is not long after, the cat is enjoying itself contrary to what it looks like, it's name was Whitey? From left to right- my niece, grandpa, brother, me, grandma, sister-in-law, and my mother down @ the old house around Christmas after my uncle passed away. I still have the flower pot, didn't realize it was that old!,