Today is a bad day.
Kurt Vonnegut died today. He is still my favorite author. The articles he wrote about the world and his country were sharp right till the end.
Closer to home I think this was Brave’s last day on this earth as well. Early this-morning he came to the deck and hudled against our bedroom door. His intense shivering caught my attention while I was editing the most recent batch of pictures.
He was all wet from the ocean and scared and very sick. I held him and scratched him while he shook. He had diarea and wanted to go back to the ocean but could barely walk without falling over. I helped him to the water but he couldn’t stand upright and I made sure his head was above water. I tried to sooth him and make him comfortable.
He started to choke up white foam and decided he didn’t want to be in the water anymore. He crawled up into some bushes he and his siblings used to play in. I tried to keep with him and keep him from being afraid but I don’t think he wanted to be around me, or his mum, or his sister. He unsteadily lurched back to the house and to the bushes beside the house.
I went inside to find out how Sarah was doing looking up the illness and trying to contact the vet. When I came back with a bowl of water and some aspirine hidden in a clump of rice he was gone.
I searched for him up and down the road and the beach but I couldn’t find him.
The symptoms suggest he was poisoned. Something that happens to homeless beach dogs here.
We liked Brave so much. He was one of the greatest dogs I ever knew. We were sad having to say goodbye to him after 6 months of playing with him and watching him grow up but this is infinitely worse.
I wish he could have been born in Canada. I wish he could have been our dog. But now I have to be satisfied that he lived a happy, energetic life surrounded by siblings and friends, cut much too short.
We miss you Brave.
