In Memory of Harry

It is with sad­ness that I write that today our good friend & dog, Har­ry, died. He had begun to decline more rapid­ly over the past cou­ple of weeks. Angela and I were on either side of Har­ry when our vet put him to sleep, just as he had slept in the mid­dle of our bed for so many years. There comes a point when our love of keep­ing our pet near us is over­come by the desire to let him have the rest he deserved.

Our chil­dren had been able to say good­bye this morn­ing before get­ting on the school bus. Har­ry spent part of his last night back in our bed sleep­ing, albeit rest­less­ly, between us. I final­ly gave in to spoil­ing him with treats of human food. Even I could­n’t resist that beg­ging face for­ev­er, I suppose.

So, to my friend who has slept at my feet every­day at work for near­ly a decade now:

Har­ry, you were as loy­al and won­der­ful of a friend as we could have ever hoped for. You were a giant per­son­al­i­ty in a small size; with­out fear but friend­ly to every­one you met. Espe­cial­ly when they hap­pened to be a lady. You real­ly liked the ladies, you old dog. You were a good dog, though, and I hon­est­ly can­not think of a bet­ter thing to say about anyone.

Where ever you are now, there aren’t any vac­u­um clean­ers, thun­der­storms, or smoke detec­tors with dead bat­ter­ies to both­er you. And there are many won­der­ful things to sniff and pee on. Some­times those are the same things. And, if it is true that all dogs go to heav­en, then sure­ly you can see Angela at every moment of the day which will make your short nub of a tail wig­gle with joy. She always was your favorite human or any­thing, right pal? Being able to watch her all day would tru­ly be your great­est wish, I’m sure.

I want to say thank you again for all the years of com­pan­ion­ship and love you showed Angela, me, and our fam­i­ly. It is a mys­tery to me how such a large heart fit into your lit­tle body. But thank you for being our dog and our friend through every­thing. It’s just hard to grasp that your life spanned most of the time Angela and I have been togeth­er. You’ve been there since near the begin­ning and were such a huge part of our build­ing a life togeth­er. We’re bet­ter off for hav­ing had your in our lives. I think you would feel the same way.

Har­ry is sur­vived by his ador­ing human fam­i­ly, Angela, Jason, Ains­ley, & Wyatt along with this big/little sis­ter, Mag­gie, the Airedale. If I’m being hon­est, though, part of what makes this post even more dif­fi­cult is know­ing that Mag­gie isn’t real­ly in good health, either. Know­ing that today was just the first part of los­ing our pets is par­tic­u­lar­ly heart­break­ing. But I’ll write about Mag­gie anoth­er day.