A Merry 2009 Christmas

Posted by Greybeard on Dec 28th, 2009 in Days of Old | 2 comments

T’was had by our clan,  hope yours went as well!

While sitting around after our Christmas dinner,   someone suggested we all take turns speaking about one of our personal memorable Christmas’s.   The majority (as should be) spoke of happy Christmas memories.  A few remembered Christmas outdoor play,  that turned into a holiday injury, (nothing to serious).  I , of course, had many Christmas memories (at my age),  some joyous,  some not.   The one that stuck,  was a bit less that joyous,  still now at this later date,  it turns out not to be a bad memory.

Grifter was our Rottweiler.   He came home with us when our kids were teen-agers and he lived past the point where they had both moved out.   On that Christmas eve,   I took Grif out to do his business,  and shovel a light snow off the deck.   Grif,  about 8 and half years old  and still acting like a puppy,  lept off the deck romped in the snow,  the lept back over the stairs onto the deck.   When he landed,  he crumpled with a yeowl,  and laid there in pain.  I ran over and found that his lower front leg was the cause.   I got him up and helped him in the house,  but he couldn’t put weight on it.     We called our Vet,  who said to call an Animal Emergency room.   We called the Emergency room and were told that they were closed until the day after Christmas.   We called our Vet back,  and he told us to bring him in, first thing the next morning.   We could tell he was in great pain,  and tried to make him as comfortable as possible,  aspirin was the strongest pain killer we had in the house.   One of us laid on his blanket with him,  all night long.   When morning came,  I carried him down to the van,   all 140 lbs.   We took him to the Vet’s office,  where he finally got some pain relief and the Doc said, for us to go on home,  and he’d call us when he had made a full diagnosis.

Later that day,  the Vet called and told us that Grif’s foreleg was eaten up with bone cancer.   When he had lept up onto the deck,  the landing had stressed the bone and it had shattered.   There was no repairing it,  and he said that if we took the leg off,  Grif may have had a couple of more years.

We respected our Vet,  and listened when he spoke.  He said,  that in his opinion,  it wouldn’t be worth it, from Grifter’s point of view.  Taking the leg off,  would have been more for our benefit.   Grif had gone through an ACL ligment repair on one of his rear legs at 3 years,and we knew how rough the recovery was from that.  

It was a tough decision on the day after Christmas,   but,  my wife , myself,  and our Vet,  decided it would be best to allow him peace.  I cradled his head and watched the life fade from those dark expressive eyes.

From there,  we carried him home,  and sledded his body up the hill on the ridge in the pines beside the house.  A small fire was built to soften the frozen ground,  and I dug a grave beside that of Zipper,  the Pit-bull mix that our kids grew from toddlers to teens with. (also succumbed to cancer).

It was a not to cold,  but snowy day,  with snowflakes swirling down through the pines. A very pretty, Christmasy day.   After digging the grave and wrapping him in his favorite blanket,  I went back to the house to warm up with the last shot of Glenfiddich from a bottle I kept.   As the wife and I prepared to walk back out the lane on the ridge to complete the burial,  two cars pull up the long driveway.   My Son-in-law and my daughter,  followed by my Son and his wife.    This delayed the burial a brief turn of time,  while we all reminisced about, the big black dog,  then we headed down the lane between the stately red pines.   While we finished the burial process,  the girls scraped the coals a bit away from the grave and added a load of fuel.  There wasn’t a dry eye.   As I padded the mound tighter with a shovel,  my Son-in-Law, pulled out a fresh bottle of Glendiddich.

We stood there watching the big snowflakes flutter down through the pines,  to cover the fresh gravel of the burial mount,  and took big pulls off that bottle of Glenny.   The kids remembered Zipper nearly as much as Grifter,  but both had their stories told again.  When the fire had turned to embers, and the light was starting to fade,  the family made their way back to the house.   I stayed for a few moments,  and cleaned the rock pile over Zippers grave,  then drove the Glenny bottle neck down into the dirt,  to serve as a headstone.   Over the next few days,  a chew bone,  a neck scarf,  a ball, and an old hunting knife(?) found their way out to sit around the base of the bottle.  

A few years passed,  before we sold the house in the woods,  and moved up north to become water people.  One of the last things I did before leaving the house was to walk down the lane and say goodbye to two legendary dogs.  Then scatter the rock piles,  and bury the head stones where they stood.  Finally scattering pine needles over the graves to concealed them from the curious.

We’ve moved on and away from that hideout deep in the woods, likely never to return and walk that ground again.   Now that I’ve wiped my eye’s and am studying a wee dram of Glenny Reserve,  I can remember those days with a sad smile,  and I often feel saddess for a human who’s never experienced the phenomenom of a good dog.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year,  to one and all.  Cherish the living,  and repect and remember those that have passed.



2 Responses to “A Merry 2009 Christmas”

1. Amos says:

   March 15, 2010 at 2:22 pm

   I’m afraid that the Pit bull needs a exclusive sort of proprietor…these pet dogs, no matter how ’sensitive’ still have teeth, are nevertheless creatures without having moral ideas and once they DO bite, won’t let go. As in all animals…some have a tendency to be far more suseptable to instinctual habits and time and time again, this breed tends to perform just that.
2. Greybeard says:

   March 15, 2010 at 5:48 pm

   Our Pit, was half boxer, and all I can say is, I couldn’t have asked for a better dog to grow up with our young children. Zipper was her name, and I can never remember her showing aggression towards another dog, and only a very few people. And the people, I felt the same way about, but neither of us made a move to bite them.