Well, thanks Kaos. Sheesh. It's been almost 4 months now already..
Buddy died the same night I wrote the above. I haven't been back here since. Not even to lurk. Nothing's been the same since that night. It did initiate a change in my thinking and my life. I've lost dogs before (and I've been married to a non-furry real girl and I've had loss before and I don't live in a plastic bubble) and I have been pretty close to them all and they all are special in their own way. I don't like to say that Buddy was more special than any of the others because they all were pretty good kids and all were special and had special things about them that none of the others had, and, I especially loved his mom, too. Buddy and I did have something extra special, though. And since he's been gone I can't say as I've had a single happy day or a single good night's sleep.
Me and Buddy and his Mom and Rainbow were on a journey together since the beginning, it felt like. We were all in it for a better life. Those dogs didn't have a very good home when I took them and neither did I and we all had a common goal to go somewhere better together and we were fam and I was driving and they were mostly happy but we never got there and now they're gone.
I still have Rainbow.. from the trio.. Rainbow was always kinda on the outside of the three. I didn't spend any less time on her, trying to figure out what makes her happy! All got equal luv.. Now she gets all the attention and everything else she could probably want, and... nothing's changed a bit for her. She's still happiest when she's off under a bush somewhere. I'm glad she's around, wherever she is.. Guaranteed she'll show up if there's a gunshot, thunder, or it's mealtime.
I've got an empty bed for the first time, since.. sheesh.. like over 20 years now. It took some getting used to! I'm still not used to it.
So anyway. Thanks Kaos. It was good to have a place to come to yell into the night. I hadn't remembered posting before he died I thought it was after. Posted right after I got the news how sick he was. I never knew! I never knew.. I took him on walks at sunup with Rainbow every single day, up a hill, and here and there and back again, since nearly a year, and we were always together otherwise, and I never knew he was sick until he couldn't breathe right and never got better.
Buddy was straight up the best example of what Good is. I honestly was constantly inspired by him and tried/try to live up to his standard. He set the bar about as high as it goes, I think. When it comes to just being.. good. I'd say I couldn't love him any more except that, when he was alive, I used to tell him I loved him more every day and I surely meant it.
Here's an updated pic with him being a goof with one of my mom's dogs, and, from the same day, Lady, who looks like she must have just woken up and is asking her dad to clean the sand out of her eyes. I've lost tons of pics and screenies to hard drive failures but I managed to find a few of the kids. At first that inserted pic of Lady kinda bugged me because it made me want to reach out and clean her eyes and then I kept it for the same reason. "Like a sack full of bowling balls, there goes Lady Girl". I used to always say that whenever she went barreling out the door and rumbling off the porch like a load of tumbled bricks. And, there's my Rainbow giving me the Herder's Eye. She used to like herding Buddy around and he didn't mind it one bit. I think a Mack truck wouldn't have been able to herd Lady. Lady is awake in that original pic, by the way, if I remember right. She barely has her eyes open before dozing off. And that is a genuine Lady smile. Not just convenient fur coloring.
Speaking of Rainbow as the outsider... in the original pic? Rainbow's in that one, too.. See that glob of black fur in the bottom right..? I looked at that wallpaper for years before I saw that.. : ) Her favorite body part, too. Her butt.. (that's based on which body part gets stuffed in my face most since she was a pup..) She would probably approve.
Thanks Kaos.