Bleak

Yesterday morning, Norma Jean Riley was trying to come and snuggle with me.  As she was making her way towards me, her  kittens launched a sneak attack and would not let her pass.

One is nursing on her.  You cannot see it, as they are the same color. The others are play fighting in front of her.  I would have offered her a glass of wine if I could have.  She is over it.  I took two of the kittens to their new homes  yesterday.  She has two left.  And she is still over it.

***

Today is bleak.  Bleak and sad.  And it is just the worst.

Last night, Hadley woke me up to tell me something was wrong with Tank.  Tank is our old dog.  He is 12 1/2.  Hadley heard him crash in the laundry room and when we got in there, he was down and unable to stand.  Hadley and I carried Tank to the carpet, which was not easy.

Reader.  He was so sad and hurting.  He was whimpering and he never whimpers.  He wanted to go to bed in our room, but he could not walk, so he used his front two legs to scoot himself to our room.  I gave him some pain medicine and water.  He cried off and on throughout the night and could not stand up in the morning.

This morning was rough.  We had to have a family meeting about what to do.  The poor boys didn’t even have time to digest the news before David told them they were in charge of digging a hole.  Kate and Hadley were in charge of comfort control.  They fed him yummy treats and gave him some medicine.  LD and I went outside to pick his burial spot.  Kate chose one of her favorite blankets to bury him with.

My kids are no strangers to animals dying, but this one hurt, Friends.

We found Tank and his sister, Miley, in February of 2012.  Their owners were needing to rehome them.  They were the same age as LD, so almost four at the time.

From left to right:

Hadley, Tank, Kate, and Miley.

Miley died in a camping accident that summer, which was, of course, extremely sad and terrible.  Tank has been a solid part of the family ever since.  He was extremely lazy and chill, which I appreciated.  He loved the homeschooling years.  He would go down to the homeschooling room with us and was LD’s reading “pillow” every day.  He joined us on walks and adventures around our property, and for several camping trips.

Here’s a fantastic photo of Tank and LD taking a summer run.  Yes, LD is in swim trunks.  They were six years old here.

He was just a great dog.  We all loved him and felt lucky to have gotten to take him in to our family eight years ago.

When Abbie came along, he did not mind her being the boss of him.  Which was great for Abbie.  They never fought or got in a tiff.  Probably because Tank was just the nicest.

One of my favorite family photos the year we got Abbie:

No matter how hard we tried, we could not get Tank to face the correct way.

So.  That is why today was bleak. We had to say goodbye to our friend.  I took the kids on a drive to the dump and for milkshakes.  All four were crying.

Poor boys.  Not only did they have to dig the hole for Tank, but they had to deal with this problem soon after:

Unclogging a flooded culvert.  Or something like that.

See?  I told you today was bleak.

I want to end with a memory of Tank from just this past week that truly captured him.

One of Norma’s kittens was investigating him, and I was sitting on the ground nearby.

The kitten weighs maybe one pound.

Maybe.

Tank weighs about 100 pounds.

The kitten investigated him and then deemed him to be an enemy.  She arched her back and hissed at him, scaring poor Tank.

He got up, trembling, and came and sat in my lap.

He was a good dog.  We were so lucky to have had him.