Missing Muddy...

Ugh! Sometimes, I just wish I was indifferent to animals. It's too hard on days like this.

I had to drop Eunice off at the veterinarian to have her teeth cleaned by 8:00 this morning. As I was leaving the office I saw a sweet old golden retriever. His beautiful face was completely white and I could tell he was quite old. I looked up and saw his person sitting with red, swollen eyes. I don't know how, but I ended up sitting down next to the woman. Seriously. I don't even remember making a conscious decision to stop in the middle of going through the door - or going back in and over to where she was sitting.

I put my hand on her shoulder and said, "Are you okay?" Again, not something I would ever consider doing in my right mind.

Tears started falling down her face and I instantly started crying. She told me she had to put him down today. I just sat there and held her dog's big head in my hands and petted him and cried with her. I was soooooo sad for this woman. So I just started talking to her - asking her how old her dog is, and what was wrong with him, etc. I told her a little bit about our Muddy and how hard it was to let him go. She just cried and said how attached she was to him. When she told me he was 11, she added, "He'll be 12 in April." I thought that was so sweet. I love when people know their pet's birthday.

I told her how beautiful he was and gave him a big kiss on his head.

Then cried my whole way home.

Anyway, this is Muddy.

He was 13 years old when we adopted him. He was nearly blind, completely deaf and had arthritis. It was difficult for him to get to a standing position. So we gave him arthritis medication every day, and put medicine in his eyes twice a day.

I have no idea how he got into this basket of clean laundry with how bad his legs were. So I couldn't even shoo him out. I let him lay in there all afternoon, then just washed that load again.

Quinn used to make beds for him out of all the blankets in the living room and put her favorite stuffed animal with him while he slept. I had to wash the blankets after each time she did this, but I never told her not to because I thought it was so sweet.

Quinn was just learning to spell and write and was making name tags for various things around the house. She made Muddy one and it stayed there for hours. Muddy didn't move much.

Muddy was special in this house. More for what he gave us then for what we gave him. We learned patience, and serving someone with no hope of anything in return.

I learned those lessons the hard way.

Muddy couldn't make it through the night without having to go outside. So Jimmy would take Muddy outside around midnight, and I'd get up at 5:00 to run. He still couldn't make it those five hours. So I made a place for him to sleep in the basement. It was a gated corner in the storage area. I lined the floor with a shower curtain, then a layer of newspapers, and put his bed in the corner.

Every single morning. I would go down and he would have pooped, then walked around in it. Even after not having eaten in hours and having gone out for a walk five hours earlier.

I had to pick him up, put him in the utility tub and wash the poop out from between the pads of his paws. Then I had to carry him upstairs, because he couldn't make it up them, and put him outside. While he was out there, I'd go down, clean up his newspapers, wash his bedding and shower curtain, and put it all back before I carried him to bed that night. Then I would go out to run while Muddy peacefully slept on his pillow in the living room.

Every. Single. Day.

Once, after cleaning him up in the morning, I was carrying him outside and poop just started dropping from him as I crossed the kitchen to make it to the door.

That was when we decided it was time for him to go. He had seven months where people loved him and he was comfortable and safe. He didn't have to die on the floor of the pet shelter. He wasn't left blindly wandering around West Chester, which he had done for who knows how long before he was brought into the shelter.

It's amazing how much I miss him.