Our dog, Karat, died sometime yesterday afternoon. We knew it was coming and almost hoped it would be sooner than later because he was just so ill and he looked miserable. We did all we could but he just got so skinny and mellow over the last month, we really noticed he was not right over the last month or so. The picture above was taken in March (he hated baths!)and he was fine then.
Yesterday around lunch time, I looked out and saw him moving a little in the dog house but then around 5pm or so Jakeb came and told me that he wasn't moving at all. When Tommy came home from work, he dug a grave and he buried our big orange dog.
We are all very sad but Anna, our 9 yr. old, is particularly sad. One of the best things about Anna is that whatever she loves, she loves deeply and she really loves our dogs. This is her first real experience with death and having to say a hard goodbye to something she loves so much and go through the grieving process. As a parent, it's so tough to see your children hurting so much.
We told Anna we will just need to focus on the good stories and we do have a few with Karat. Starting with how we got him.
When Jakeb was in 4th grade, 6 years ago, Anna was 3. The day was November 19th and Jakeb's class was having their Thanksgiving Feast at school. I was supposed to take carrots and forgot. So, Anna and I dropped Jakeb off at school and went to the store to buy carrots and bring them back. When we got back to the school, there was a super cute little orange puppy with huge feet (we knew he would be a big dog!) hanging around the outside entry to the school. Anna immediately fell in love and I thought I would be a bad role model if I just left that puppy there to get run over in school traffic. We dropped off the carrots, picked up the dog and took him home. He had no collar. We made all the appropriate phone calls and did all we could to return him to whoever he belonged to but we had no luck in finding his home. So, we kept him. Bella, our hyperspastic English Shorthair/Pointer, needed a playmate anyway and we had room in our big "dog yard". We named the big-footed, orange dog Karat for three reasons. We found him while dropping off carrots, he was orange and November 19th is mine and Tommy's wedding anniversary so I guess I had diamonds on the brain. :)
The Stunz family blog posts for the next few days will be dedicated to Karat and stories about him. I will try to get the kids and Tommy to tell a story or two. It's always good to remember the fun times when you miss someone.
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