AFEW days ago, the Saskatoon StarPhoenix carried an article about a pet cemetery that had failed financially and was about to be plowed under by the new owner.
The people with pets buried in the cemetery were upset and the owner of the property professed not to understand their emotions, saying in effect that the pets buried there were only animals.
The story struck a chord with me, as we had just lost the dog we lived with for over six years.
“He was a good friend,” my husband said as we buried Winston in the garden.
Read Also
Late season rainfall creates concern about Prairie crop quality
Praying for rain is being replaced with the hope that rain can stop for harvest. Rainfall in July and early August has been much greater than normal.
He was indeed.
From the first moment I held him, a quivering mass of black fluff with a pink tongue avidly licking ears, chin, hands, I was his slave. But from the first day we took him home, he was Grant’s dog.
They would go off to work together in the old green half ton, Winston sitting proudly in the passenger seat. As he grew bigger, he looked like a second person sitting there. I always threatened to make him a proper farmer’s cap. I never got around to it.
He loved riding in any vehicle, but his greatest joy was riding in the “big truck” going for a tank of water. He would stand in the seat and bark all the way to the spring and back.
Winston was a bit of a sexist, I think, who believed that driving was man’s work. When I drove the half ton, he would ride along reluctantly, lying on the floor with his head hidden in his paws.
If Grant represented man’s work, in Winston’s view of the world, I represented ear rubs, filled water dishes and good things to eat. It is hard now, eating my morning cereal, without those brown eyes staring at me. He never blinked, and would inch closer and closer, as if to say, hurry up, I want my cereal. He always got the leftover milk and I always got a disdainful look if one or two stray bits of cereal weren’t left in the bowl.
Until just days before the end, Winston would jump up and down and run in circles at the mention of the words work or truck. If only we could find a hired man with such enthusiasm!
When he went, he went quickly. I think he knew it was the end.
We tried to pretend things would work out, but weren’t surprised one day last week to find him lying peacefully under his old green half ton, reaching out as if to touch his water truck.
Now, he lies in a corner of the garden he “helped” us weed so often.
Working out there on Sunday, I found myself talking to him. I like to think he heard me, and was content.
