Cowboy And Rooster, Continued

  I got a call from Seal. They were going to put Cowboy down. I told him not to wait for me, but to stop his suffering as soon as possible. I walked back to the vets' and went inside. But I couldn't make myself go through the door. I walked around the lobby once and then went through the door. Cowboy was immediately in front of me on the little stretcher, and the doctor was giving him the sedative and then the kill shot. I laid my hand on him. I thought I saw him open his eyes momentarily. Then the doctor put away her stethoscope, quietly saying, "He's gone." I broke again and left the room. Another vet was on the floor with a dog and his owners discussing what would have to be done for the dog. I went right through them without an "excuse me" because I didn't think I could get the words out. Not yet realizing that being without Paxil for at least two days was why I was breaking down, I searched for a reason. Several years ago, I had visited Page, our little rat terrier we rescued one cold January night near the New River, Florida. After we had raised her for several years, she and several other dogs were bitten by a timber rattlesnake. They killed the snake, but one dog did not survive his bite. Page was bitten in the chest, and when I visited her at the vets, she was so swollen from the snake's toxins that her eyes were shut. I stayed with her a while, talking to her, and when I left I had tears in my eyes. But why so emotional today with Cowboy?
  I had first seen dogs dying when Katey, our young Irish Setter, was poisoned when I was a young boy. My father, mother, and I stood and watched as she went through convulsions and eventually died. I was too young then to know that my cheap father should have been calling the vet and taking her in. By the time I was eleven, I had finally talked my father into allowing me to have a beagle puppy. We had a kennel of beagles. However, he brought a new dog into our kennel who turned out to have distemper. My father, not wanting to spend money on shots, had left our dogs unprotected. I think my puppy was the first dog who got the distemper. I found him lying in the kennel, having convulsions. My father gave me a lead pipe and said to kill him. He had to be put out of his misery. Again, he wasn't going to waste any precious money taking my puppy to the vet's and having him do it humanely. Instead, at eleven years old, I had to bludgeon my puppy to death. Why didn't my father, supposedly the adult in the house, do it? Who knows?
I think he didn't care about the psychological trauma to me. I think he wanted to see if I could handle it and was secretly disappointed when I could without him physically forcing me to. He'd rather use the lead pipe on me. Soon my puppy's mother and other beagles were lieing on the ground, barely alive. I had to kill and bury them too. - To Be Continued.  Be of good cheer. There is a heaven. Earth is just a bloody place to work on improving our character or helping others to do so. Two-Guns