Dead dogs

Growing up I was not a dog lover.  No one in my family had dogs, partially because my dad was allergic and when I was little I was chased by a German Shepherd .My dad lifted me up and he bit my dad.  I really thought the only good dog was a dead dog, but if anyone has been to my house I have obviously gotten over that fear! I married a dog lover.  In fact not too long ago his parents had 7 huge dogs, I mean one was 180 pounds.  I told him if I had met him when they had all those dogs I would have never gone back. When we bought our house my husband wanted a dog. All right honey.  We went to the rescue and got two dogs. One went back because of a dog fight in which my husband's leg was a casualty, but we kept our senior citizen Jojo.  We later did get another dog from a military family that had to move. Her name was Baby. She was blind and had the most annoying bark, but stayed with me all the time. I grew to love these dogs deeply and sobbed when they died. In fact when one of them was dying Ben was a baby and both him and Jonathan were extra needy that night and I was so irritated at them for interrupting the last moments I had with her.  Somehow we intended to bury the ashes but did not.  Last month we found the ashes again and decided to bury them together under the tree they sat side by side every day.  Since Jonathan remembered the dog Baby so we had a little memorial.  We dumped the ashes somberly and all of the sudden like a cannonball Ben jumped into the air and landed in the hole full of ashes sending most of the ashes flying and Ben covered in our dead dog's ashes.  We too got ash on us.  We just stood there mortified looking at each other. Hence to say that funeral was finished.

My in-laws have also lost many dogs over the years and, most recently, every time the boys would visit.  The first time we went up for fourth a July and one died.  The second one died over the winter and Jonathan happen to be the one to find the body  He knew somehow he was dead and went downstairs and said very matter-of-fact, "Reggie's dead". This week as we were visiting we hadn't seen one of the dogs in a while and Jonathan asked, "Where's Machka? Is she dead?"  I think we may have caused some permanent damage to that one.