1 Duh. Ain't nobody gone nowhere.

2 ..call me a softie but I believe the hearts intent and flow of love for each animal goes with them wherever they are so they are never without us in their heart. *hugs*

3 I've lost three dogs in two years, all to old age, and I feel like I failed all of them, especially Mickey, who died in my arms.

They're all up there waiting for us.

http://www-hsc.usc.edu/~rneville/dogpoem3.html

http://www.petloss.com/poems/maingrp/dinah.htm

4 Mike...I know what yer saying, buuuut...I can't SEE them anymore. They may be here, but they need to be a little more demonstrative about it,ya know? lol.
Dark fire...I hope so.
John...my God. One of the dogs I let down in Jersey was named Micky. (Named after Micky Dolenz, hence no 'e'...) And, thank you for those two links. And, thank you for showing me I'm not the only one who feels it this way. Man.

5 Evening,Love,

See, other people who feel as you do about animals feel the same as I do about you guilt-tripping yourself. Only they say it better, because they have been personally involved. Love your animals, do what you can for them. Then love yourself for being so kind to them while you knew them. None of you are responsible for the fact that animals have a much shorter life-span than you do, (and a lot less reasoning power.)
Please spare me the stories about 'my dog always knew what I was thinking, he brought in the mail,
made supper when I was down. Lassie and Trigger
could run six miles and save a puppy drowning in a flash-flood, or bring back the sheriff and a posse on command..etc. I mean (and am not demeaning) regular animals (99.6% or so) will do
things that make them vulnereable to injury, death,and ddisappearance. There aren't any real squirrels who will run in front of a car,stand up and make the car run of the road into a tree, and
then slap hands with his nut-gathering pal for chalking up another kill. You animal lovers are good folks, who have a hard time not going over the line of thinking animals are really people in
different bodies. This causes a lot anguishing
guilt trips, and other miseries that makes your love
relationship with your four-footed charges (sorry, I didn't mean to insult you snake-lovers out there, but you get the point)more emotionally expensive than it should be.
I know how you feel, having lived with Stevie for twenty years (as her father, for all you out there whose minds are as devious as mine..)and paying many bills that were weird. (Such as,
being gigged by a dog warden for not having a license for a dog she'd found the day before,
despite my protestations the mutt wasn't really ours.) Stevie had returned the dog about six weeks before I had to go to 'All you bastards who are trying to get out of license fees will feel the wrath of the Big Dog Warden in the Sky court'.
The judge was so amused my story (after being subjected to much abuse by previous pissed-off
dog owners) that he only charged me court costs, and admonished me to try to control Stevies' impulses. Hah! As you see, it's 24 years later, and not much has changed. She brought home a
young dog one evening with the honest thought of finding the proper owner the next day. I got up to go to work, and found the poor dog lying by our driveway with his eyeball hanging out on his cheek. He'd been hit by a car during the night, and was a prime candidate for mercy extinction. I woke up Stevie and her mother, and (as usual) suffered a storm of "No, don't do anything! We'll take the dog to the vet!" I'm thinking the vet would (fatally) end the discussion when he saw the dog. Hah! (I say again.) I came home to find the dog with his eyeball in a more traditional
eyeball location,(ie in his eyesocket with wonderfully placed stiches all around.) He could see out of the eye, and was in a state of perfect happiness as he licked my face. I felt I was
living in Biblical times, have just watched Jesus
pull a Lazarus on the crowd. The only (usual)down-side was a seventy dollar or so vet bill (this was back in the seventies), and the dog being
home with his master (or mistress or whatever) the next morning!

I had dogs and cats when I was a child, but we had no money for extravagances as vet bills. We
had a dog who used to go out in the swamp and bring home a muskrat once in a while. One morning,
we found a dead muskrat on the step, and Bugsy
(Ok, so none of you have pets with goofy names, I suppose..) lying in the driveway with half his nose torn off his face (but still hanging there in such a position that duct-tape would have been an effective remedy, if dogs had dry noses and blood..) For the first time in our unremarkable family history, we TOOK A DOG TO THE VET! The vet sewed his nose back perfectly, and charged us five bucks. We sold the muskrat to a local trapper for six bucks. The last time in my life I ever came out ahead on a vet bill.

How did I ever get off on such a ramble? (A question I ask myself several times a day, by the
way, since I talk the same as I write.) I've got to get back to analyzing better things for better living, or some such thing...

6 Well, you guys must be doin' some good vibes on me, because this time, I made it all the way thru without tearing up....lol.
I have figured out one thing, tho...saying the things I think helps. And, I don't mean calling somebody a thumb-dick, no brained, fucknugget either. I mean articulating the things that stab me in the heart makes them hurt less the next time they occur to me.
For instance, telling Eric what my mind came up with that happened to Snuffles, took the bite out of it some. Speaking the horror, making it as tangible as it can be, makes it easier to get past, somehow. I don't really understand how, but it does.
I still haven't been able to bring myself to watch "The Aristocats", yet, though. That makes me cry anyway, when Thomas O'Malley (the Alley Cat) is telling Duchess about how most people are toward cats. But, I feel like, if I can watch that and not die of heartache, it'll get me that much further along in 'getting over this'...ya know? And...ya know what? Now that I think of it, I used to do the same thing over guys. When one would leave me or die (three dead ex- boyfriends...do NOT piss me off...lmao), I used to play all the songs that reminded me of them and the songs that were about what I had, yet again, failed to find and just rip my own heart out, basically. Like trying to rip a band-aid off a hairy appendage really fast...
It was intense, all right, but to my way of thinking, one hell of a lot better than dragging it out over weeks. Plus, then, it was ME hurting me, not them anymore. That didn't really make it hurt any less, but it did somehow make it more survivable. I didn't, don't and never will bother doing that over a female shitting on me, though. (If I did that, I wouldn't have time to do much else...heh. I'd still be trying to get thru mom's shit...let alone high school and since then...ugh. No thanks.)
Anyway...It is getting better. Now I just wonder how long it'll take to quit feeling guilty for feeling a little better....sigh.

7
One thing Stevie ( it feels weird to call my daughter 'Stevie', since we named her after her grandmother 'Rumplestiltskin'...)hasn't told you
is she not only lost three boyfriends, but she lost about 28 to 30 friends and aquaintances to car accidents, drugs, and other terrible accidents
by time she was about 25 or so. This is why she
invests so much time and emotion in the people who are left, and, especially in her animals. There are very few people who have lost so many friends in seperate situations. There is one accident that my cousin's boy died in that cost
four or five lives. In her grief, Stevie used to go the the accident scenes and bring home 'relics'
such as a twisted bumper, a snapped-off steering wheel, part of a fender, etc. My garage had a large pile of souveniers of such tragedies. Her
souveniers, now, are her memories, and the understandable feelings that nothing ever comes out right. If I croak, I don't want anyone to tell her for about 15 years. She's pretty, intelligent, and quite screwed up by all the things that have happened to her friends. She has
amazing capacity for survival,though.

8 Actually, I still have the piece of Andy's truck. I was just lookin' at that a few days ago.
His T-shirt he was wearing the day before he died too.
Starting with Miss Chapman (and not to even mention Miss Dunkleburger when I was in, like second grade) when I was in 8th grade til I graduated, there were either 66 or 68 people including a few teachers between the two high schools I went to who died that I knew. After I graduated came Mike, Walt, Mark (the three exes), Uncle Henry, Andy, Pop-pop H., Mom-mom H., Pop-pop V., mom....I just kinda quit countin when it got close to a hundred. I didn't want to know anymore. Clint Ware, Aunt Lolly, Charlie Villanova, Mom-mom V...it's endless.
Did you know that Waylon Flowers died too? No more Madam...how sad. Other than him, I'm not even gonna get into the famous people it killed me to lose...(Johns Lennon and Belushi, Gilda...need I go on? It SUCKS.)
Is it any wonder I'm not scared of death? Hell, I know more dead people than live ones anymore...which would be understandable if I were around 80 or so, but I'm only 40, for Pete's sake...lol.
(I swear...I feel like Typhoid-fuckin'-Mary, sometimes...)(Oh good, I just noticed John Edwards is on the TV...lmao, now...I ever went to see him, he'd have heart failure at the number of people who showed up for me...)