dog day afternoon

i remember putting spencer down. interesting term: putting them down. a farm term, i think. He was so old, and so ill, and i just hadn't been paying attention. i was too busy saving my own life: hep c. you try it. by december, the interferon (the treatment then was three self-administered shots a week) had kicked my ass. the thing is, spencer was out back in the cold, his own ass kicked by arthritis and old dog age. I didn't know. And when I finally held my head up and looked around for the first time since July, he was suffering. I suppose I could have bought myself more time with him, more time to stroke the black and white guernsey cow of a dog. But I wouldn't have been buying him anything at all. Just more time to be an old, sick dog. Sometimes the selfishness of pet ownership strikes me. Like Linda, my cousin who had a german shepherd named Heidi. She couldn't let the dog go. It was dragging its back legs across the carpet, incontinent, demented. In the natural environment, Heidi never would have made it. She named her daughter after the dog. Anyway, Spencer was the best dog.

Kurt had to put Click down today. I'm glad he waited for me to do it. I couldn't stand for him to be that sad alone. In memorium, I'd like to remember that the dog chased flies.