February 28, 2005 - 00:12 [z-05:00]

       I killed my dog Saturday. Let's don't sugar coat it. He was almost 17 years old. We kept pumping him full of pain killers and steroids, and eventually the steroids caused asceptic necrosis and the pain pills became narcotics. Finally, we woke up Saturday morning to the dog's screaming in pain and realized it was time to kill him.

       Now mind you, Trapper Treebone, for so he was named by my son back in February of 1990, was a pleasant enough sort of dog. But from the moment we got him at the tender age of 6 months, he was an old man. We figured he was half-golden retriever and half golden collie. The SPCA pound, which would later kill one my dogs without notifying us that she had even been found (after we had notified them eighteen minutes after we knew she was lost), didn't know what kind of dog he was, either, but that didn't matter.

       What mattered was that Trapper had us, and we had Trapper.

       Trapper never played catch, he never ran around our ¾-acre back-yard, he never wanted to do anything except run up the street, pee, and run back home. Took him about half an hour. Like clockwork.

       He didn't like to be put on a leash, either. He was, in fact more like a cat than a dog, except for the fact that he was predictable. And he WAS predictable.

       He was perennial as well. You could always count on his wanting to eat at a certain time and sleep in a certain place. He always barked at the wrong times and would welcome strangers and bark at neighbors.

       We rarely spanked him as a puppy because we learned rather quickly that someone must have beaten him severely before we got him. He is the only dog I've ever known who cringed. And it was pathetic to see. Maybe that's why he was always an old man - just happy to be there, but please, don't ask him to do anything.

       Trapper Treebone never learned to do tricks. And the list goes on. But he was always a gentleman in the house and tried hard not to get in the way.

       He was also allergic to himself. We must have easily spent over a grand on his skin conditions and finally discovered that he was allergic to dander! Here was this beautiful, multicoated golden wonder who we eventually had to shave in order for him to be comfortable.

       In his old age, he mellowed a bit and let you pat him, from time to time. But that was about all.

       Still, when the time came to force his passage into the next world, I cried like a child. Kubler-Ross, who is also dead, would know just how I feel as I pass from one to another of grief's five conditions.

       Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. The "bargaining" involving a pet, they say, occurs before you actually put the pet down. I believe that. I also believe that there is nobody to be angry with. I can't even get satisfaction from ending a sentence with a preposition.

       Yes, I know it was the right thing to do.

       Yes, I know that he is in a better place.

       Yes, I know he could not be left to endure the horror of pain that he eventually had come to experience.

       Yes, I know he was only a dog.

       But, God help me, I still love that old man. And I killed him. It is a bitter truth with which I must live with, forever.

       I am not a better person for it. I'm just a dumb guy with a dumb dog that is gone. And I miss him so.