---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <s3raphita@...> wrote :
My father was in the Foreign Office so my experience with pets was that we'd have a dog to play with for a couple of years and then when my dad was posted to a new country my last sight of my beloved hound would be its hurt, forlorn expression as it was driven off in the car of his new owners. Alas, Keo, loyal and faithful friend! It was not me who chose to abandon you! Not recommended, unless you want to induce life-long trauma into your children's psyches . . . Terrible for you. Terrible for them. A small death every time. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <awoelflebater@...> wrote : ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <steve.sundur@...> wrote : Maybe think about the life you are giving them as opposed to the life they might have if you don't give them a home. ---In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, <j_alexander_stanley@...> wrote : I grew up in a petless household because my family's experiment in dog ownership ended before my time when George Washington, a dachshund, grew ornery after my sister kept trying to ride him. My only experience with pet ownership was the 16 years that our household was dominated by cats, and that came to a tragic end, 13 months ago, when we had to put down our most beloved kitty. What's especially sad is that of our 16 years with her, what stands out the most in my memory of her is her final months of declining health. As cute and lovable as those dogs look, all I can think of is the unbelievable pain and heartbreak you will experience when they die. Honestly, I don't understand how people can put themselves through that, pet after pet after pet. This has been Depressing Thoughts, by Alex Stanley Ahh yes, the subject of pet ownership. All I can really say is that it is still worth the sadness at the end of things. Sometimes they die slowly and sometimes they die fast and too young But these little creatures fill one's life with big and small events every single day. Sometimes you find yourself dreading the end, whatever form that end might take, well before it ever happens and then you catch yourself and scold that part of you that isn't loving the present because one is already anticipating the future. I have a particular favorite in my pack of 4 dogs and she is already 12 and we have been through paralysis and back surgery with her ($13K worth of vet bills later) and she is my doting and giving companion who carries my gloves up from the arena after a ride and who takes my ball cap off my head to carry it into where it is hung and who comes to work with me every day to lie next to me for 8 uncomplaining hours and who climbs up onto the bed to lie at my feet all night and who I will, inevitably, have to watch die. It will rip the very heart out of where it beats in me and I will feel bereft and gutted. That is how it is. When you love as deeply as I do for my animals then you have to pay the price when they go. Every time they do they take a piece of me with them just as every time another one shows up in my life they bring a little piece back.
