Hi Pen;

I'm  really sorry to hear about this. The loss of a pet is always tough. Especially long standing pets. When this happens, the pet's owner always says something about this one being special ................. HEY! They're all special. How many friends do you have that's even close to being as loyal as a pet almost invariably is? That's a devastating loss for anybody. If that constant companion has been around a long time? Oh, man! It's unbelievably hard to take.lying

We went through this last spring. We lost a cat that we had for twenty years. I never had any pet for twenty years before that. It tore both of us right up. And we've been having this phenomenon ever since. We'll be lying in bed, and feel it shake the same way that it always did when he would jump up on it. Ripper weighed twenty pounds, so it's hard to mistake that. Yes, he's still around.

So we know that feeling you're experiencing .............. that empty hole in your daily life. You have our sympathies, condolences, and anything else appropriate of course, but that seems woefully inadequate to me. It sounds like this dog was around for a long time, and had taken a position he thought needed filling. Dogs are like that. Very perceptive creatures. They always seem to know what's needed, do they not? And that loyalty of a pet that I mentioned? Dogs take it to an entirely different level. Humans could really do well if they would only take loyalty training from their dogs. Hey, they helped us get through the ice age. We might have starved ourselves into extinction if we hadn't teamed up with the wolves. Most people don't think of this, but the hunting skills that wolves brought to the human tribes they joined must have seemed like a miracle to those people. And ................. like the example you told us of where this dog filled some very definite needs, they continue doing so to this day, in one way or another. I can sense your loss. I offer my condolences, and pray that you may find the solace that you need as soon as possible. I feel especially sorry for your son. Those massive sized dogs are always a very powerful bond for a guy when we have one for a pet. When we lose one like that, it's almost like one of your kids just died. The traditional role that guys are raised to assume, requires that we may only have a very few, select friends that we can trust, and be able to relax about it. One of them just happens to be our dogs. Tell your son that he has my sympathies if it's okay to do so please.

I don't know why it always bothers me so much to hear about another person's pet dying, but it does.

Take care;
Tim