Community Chat

[doxiefamily]

Barney

07/05/2006 - 07/30/2012

It is mind-boggling to know that over 1,100 people have taken time to read about Barney, our crazy, smart, wonderful, irritating, unbelievably loud, red-and-white dachshund. For the 40+ people who have replied, my daughter and I have read each and every word. Some of you have offered suggestions about what could have happened, but virtually everyone sent hugs, condolences and well wishes. You will never know how much we appreciate it all!

It will be three weeks on Mon., Aug. 20, since Barney suddenly left us. Our entire household is changed. Our other dogs are still quiet, but they don’t look for him nearly as much--except for Molly who is obviously still grieving. They are establishing new routines for playing, eating, napping, and going outside.

Barney had an incredible amount of energy, and it was work keeping up with him so our lives have changed in that there is not as much work generated. Barney was very vocal, so it’s soooo quiet sometimes.

We have cried buckets, but now our talk has turned to happier times remembering the crazy stuff he did, his incredible, smartest-ever brain that amazed us daily, and his beautiful coat, colors, ears--what handsome boy he was!

We’re watching with interest to see which member of our “dog family” becomes the new head of household. So far, it doesn’t look like any one of them is stepping up to the job.

We still don’t know what happened to Barney, although we have some ideas. I wrote our vet a long letter, and in closing, I implored her to slow down, take an extra minute, see one or two appointments less a day if necessary in order to give more time to finding the cause of problems instead of just treating symptoms. I told her billing wasn’t everything—it was the outcomes for the pets that mattered. Her reward would come through good work. I told her I hoped next time she’d hear a whisper telling her to look a little harder, reach a little further because someone was depending on her to save their best friend.

She wrote back a nice letter; she just might hear that whisper—at least she didn’t rule out the possibility.

We miss our buddy like crazy and would give anything if he would come crashing through the back door. We are busy rounding up all our photographs of him and putting in albums. His cammo sweater (boy, he hated that sweater!) is packed away with his baby, his favorite blanket and a few other things. His ashes have been returned to us and are put away. Neither of us can look at the little box without crying. We are still very much grieving our loss…in all my years, of all my own dogs, those of friends and dogs of family members, Barney was the most special. He just “got us” and because he was so incredibly smart, he communicated so that we “got” him, too.

Now that I’m not working, maybe I’ll write a book about Barney. If I do, it will be a while...right now, I miss him too much, the grief is too much, and the anger, yes I'm angry, that he was taken from us so soon. It will get better with time so I think I'll be waiting ...and waiting....waiting. One thing is for sure: I will never run out of material!