Thunderpup and Traveler

The music is "Too Much Love Will Kill You" by Brian May. 

There's a special pain to losing a dog.  They're our children who never grow up, no matter how big or fierce, no matter that they're the adults of another species that has, for some reason unknown to me anyway, chosen to accompany us through life.  They are wise, as nature made them wise, innocent of our failings, beautiful in form, terrible in their strength, loyal beyond our understanding, finer than any other animal on earth.  Once a dog accepts you as his leader, he is yours unswervingly, faithfully, to death.  The human animal seldom reaches a nobility he has as his birthright.  Once you've been owned by a German Shepherd Dog, you know this.

Dogs are more than our charges, they are our companions, our friends, undeserving as we often are.  They fulfill their end of the bargain, struck so long ago when their ancestors came out of the shadows beyond our fires and into our service.  Sometimes, we don't.  Sometimes, we can't.  And

when we can't, oh, how it hurts.

For while they live, they are our helpmates, our pride, our protection from the bogies in the dark, our amusement;  and when they go, even if it's only old age that claims them peacefully, they tear our hearts out.  When they die young, slowly, with hope fading every day, the pain is exquisite.  And even then, they try to comfort us. 

Whoever wrote that poem about the Rainbow Bridge got it wrong.  If there should be such a place, they aren't the ones who would have to wait and be reclaimed in order to pass;  we are the ones who would need them to vouch for us, to pass us on.  It speaks volumes for them that, no matter how little we might deserve that loyal disregard for all our failings, they would probably give it.

May your next journey be a better one, my sweet pup.

index

Traveler

Dakota

Thunder

2 September 1997

2 June 2000

Ehrlichiois is a killer, invariably fatal unless diagnosed in time and treated aggressively.  Far too few vets know anywhere near enough about it.  Arm yourself with knowledge about this deadly disease carried by ticks by clicking on his picture below.

In Memoriam:  Henri Bauer

Bauernhoffen - Best in Blacks

He was my perfect German Shepherd Dog

If you listen to the music all the way through, you'll hear an echo of the pain and the aching emptiness I felt after losing my Thunder to Ehrlichiosis when he was two years, nine months old.  I listened to it over and over afterward.  I look at these pictures now and the hurt comes back all over again.  And I remember Kipling's bitter advice about never giving your heart to a dog to tear. But once  you've had a German Shepherd Dog, it's not advice you can take.  Not after you've had a dog like Thunder.

Thunder's story is inextricably entwined with that of Nancy Garcia's Adam since I would never have known what was killing him if it hadn't been for her telling me about the sudden, unexpected death of her handsome Aussie.  If you want to read about what tick disease can do, try his page.    Adam