My older dog, Rudy, died Sunday night. For him it wasn't bad. He went into heart failure, breathed hard most of the day, and then passed peacefully on our hallway floor with my husband next to him. For us, it was awful. The loss was bad enough......I cried, my husband cried, my daughter bawled, and my son tried to remain stoic. We wrapped Rudy in a winter blanket that still hasn't been washed and took him to the 24-hour veterinary office.

We've decided to cremate him and use his ashes on ceramic pieces we make ourselves (see post of 2/9/01). Seems a bit less gross than keeping his ashes in an urn, and a bit more permanent than burying him in the backyard, since we plan to move in a couple of years. Also, nobody needs to know but us! Sort of a clan secret (Shhhhh! Don't tell now!)

At any rate, I feel a bit better today, two days after the event. Sunday was rough, Monday felt empty. Now I'm coming out of it. We'll still miss him, and I'll probably have triggers that make me cry (forget about watching Animal Planet for a while). But Rudy was a great dog who thought he was a prince. Plus, we still have Neo, a dog who thinks we're dogs like him! What a difference.