For a pug Yoda lived a charmed life for sure. As a young dog, he had no idea he was even a dog, and I’m not sure he ever was completely aware of his species. When Baron came along he definitely found a special friend for himself, to the dismay at times of the rest of us. But they were buddies to the end. Baron was endlessly patient with Yoda’s peculiar ways, and Yoda never blamed Baron for breaking his back. Yoda spent the last year handicapped, but never let that slow him down. He still rambled to the neighbors, managed to slip and slide into the kitchen so he was right under your feet every time you cooked, was the first one at the table ready to beg for a scrap, barked at any nature sounds outside or on the tv, as well as any scary/horror films, and more and more near the end just barked at nothing at all. Yoda was certainly lonely for Baron these last few months, along with the rest of us.

We knew we would have to make the hardest decision pet owners make, yet again with Yoda. His back legs were getting worse, he had less and less control over them, and when he lost all control of his bowels, we knew it was time. We called Helen to let her know since Yoda was her dog from the start. She earned half the money to pay for him as a 9-year-old selling mistletoe at holiday market and picked him out from his litter. He was a part of her life for 12 years, over half her life actually. Mike took Yoda in for that last ride to the vet, while I stayed home and cleaned up the backroom and the last mess he left us all. When they returned, William, Mike and I buried him by Baron. Again, how can we be so sad about a dog that we all disliked so much at times??

 Yoda

4/20/99 -7/21/11

You were such a turd, but you were our turd:)

We are contemplating putting that on his headstone. With variations on the word turd being proposed, we are just not sure how much bad language the headstone carver will do. We can’t be the first to want to put curse words on a headstone, right?

Now what do we do? The 4 cats we have at this time are feeling pretty damn cocky for sure. I just miss a dog to care for, give a pat too, bitch about, talk to, watch wandering around our property. Part of the reason I feel so out of sorts is that we have had dogs since before Helen was born.   Dog-less land is so empty, missing something very real and tangible. Maybe someday we will get another dog, but for now I’m holding onto memories and saying good-bye to ghosts.

So I was just going to go without him today, but as soon as I had my shoes on and my earphones in he knew what was up. And he was so adorable and pathetic looking, he kept following me around the house and obviously didn’t want to get left behind.

So I took him without the leash or collar, because he’s pretty good most of the time, we went on this dirt road in the middle of nowhere so it’s not like he could run away or anything. And he was doing great, he stuck right by me and if he got too far I just called him back and he’d come running all sweet again and stay with me.

But then we passed some yard that must have smelled amazing to him, because he turned into the worst dog ever after that. He refused to come back, he looked back at me and then defiantly ran away. It took me like 5 minutes to convince him to come back to me, so he ruined my run and I had to take him home. Yes, my own fault for thinking he would be good but, come on Baa, throw me a bone. [Excellent pun usage here, in case you missed it.]

Anyway, going to go back out and re-do it in a few minutes, without him, and after that I’m going to drive around the block with my head out the window just to spite him.