immortalized, part ii (the super sad sequel)

i’m pretty sure i’m still in shock…

…’cause less than an hour ago i woke up and had three dogs. now i only have two.

the people behind me have a german shepherd named “donner” (one can only assume after one of santa’s deer) who’s male. ever since they got him (less than a year ago) he & lucky would bark viciously at each other through the fence…for no more than fifteen seconds. on hot days a bit less. well, we’ve been having record heat around texas way lately and i noticed a couple of times when he had his fifteen seconds of michael vick time he’d occasionally walk away a bit dizzy – i just took this as a heat thang, would let them in almost instantly, he’d hit the water bowl, and be fine.

today he & copper went outside, there was the fifteen seconds of barking, i looked outside and he was trotting away from the fence, went and peed, etc, etc – i turned back to the computer screen. a few moments later i heard a second ten seconds of the same barking, but as it wasn’t even 7am i took it as “it’s cooler, let him get it out of his system…” but then soon after heard a weird whimper noise. i opened the sliding glass door and copper walked in, but i saw lucky laying in the grass next to the porch – breathing heavy and whimpering in a way i’d never heard before (and he was a whiner to say the least, so i’d heard multiple variations on this). i walked over to him, put my hand on his side and said, “easy, buddy…catch your breath. you seem to have exerted yourself…”

than i noticed he wasn’t breathing. i opened his mouth and his tongue was blue. i tried pumping his chest and breathing into his mouth (believe it or not this worked several years ago on julie) but nothing. i raced to the vet and they called what i suspected – he was DOA. their guess was a stroke or an aneurysm – we’ll never know which, ’cause doggy autopsies are far from cheap, and getting him cremated (which i decided to do like i did with calum and have always regretted NOT doing for julie) is $300, so we’ll just chalk it up to one of those two as he was exhibiting ZERO symptoms and was his usual happy bouncy self last night when i got home AND this morning as he went out.

he’s been acting fine and eating normally with NO signs of anything wrong. i have no idea what the fuck just happened – i just know i miss him already, and hope whatever it was it ain’t contagious and buffi and copper are still safe…

Lucky “Dude” McCauley
October 31, 2005 – August 16, 2010