My eldest dog died this morning. I noticed he`d lost loads of weight when i came back from Nam. He had cancer. I kept him going as long as he wasn`t suffering stress or pain, been feeding him chicken from the supermarket, spoiling him rotten. Over the weeks he`s aged rapidly but this morning it all went pear shaped and i had to do what i`ve been dreading for weeks. Now he`s in a little box on the cabinet next to his mother and sister. I`m gutted, I`ve got another dog Poppy but she`s only 4, still just a dog, a great dog but Claude had been with me since his first breath. He`d been with me through the death of my mother, through the comings and goings of the women in my life, through the sh1t storms of the past few years. He`s irreplaceable. R.I.P Claude, life just wont be the same again.
The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog. A man's dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer. He will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounters with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings, and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.
If fortune drives the master forth, an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him, to guard him against danger, to fight against his enemies.
The one absolutely unselfish friend that man can have in this selfish world, the one that never deserts him, the one that never proves ungrateful or treacherous is his dog. A man's dog stands by him in prosperity and in poverty, in health and in sickness. He will sleep on the cold ground, where the wintry winds blow and the snow drives fiercely, if only he may be near his master's side. He will kiss the hand that has no food to offer. He will lick the wounds and sores that come in encounters with the roughness of the world. He guards the sleep of his pauper master as if he were a prince. When all other friends desert, he remains. When riches take wings, and reputation falls to pieces, he is as constant in his love as the sun in its journey through the heavens.
If fortune drives the master forth, an outcast in the world, friendless and homeless, the faithful dog asks no higher privilege than that of accompanying him, to guard him against danger, to fight against his enemies.
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