[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Pet loss

[Sheryll Townsend]

Mercia,

Sorry not to have responded sooner, RL is playing
havoc with my free time. 

I can totally  relate to how you're feeling over this
loss. My sister lost a couple of dogs to speeding cars
on country roads when I was a teenager and finally got
a black Labrador that she named Sasha. Sasha was
getting very old, but had been with us forever it
seemed. She had been the self-appointed guardian ever
since my daughter was born. We were never allowed to
punish Nyssa for anything, as the dog wouldn't allow
it. And the things Nyssa did to that dog as a
toddler....fingers in the ears, sleeping on the dog,
once even lifting Sasha's head by inserting fingers in
each of the dogs nostrils. 

When Nyssa was about 3, Sasha disappeared. She had
been living at my parents' house while my sister was
away taking a yearlong college programme. Mom and Dad
just came home one day and the dog was gone. She
usually spent the days on the back deck of the house,
untied because she rarely wandered and she could have
broken the chain if she wanted anyway. But she wasn't
there when they got home and no one had seen her. Much
as Dad professed not to like the dog (who had come to
our family when he was away travelling), he spent
night after night out in the car, driving country
roads looking for her, even combing the ditches in
case she was hurt. Nothing. Two other black Labs had
disappeared from the same village on the same day.
About a week later, someone asked the guy at the gas
station if he had seen anything (he's a mile or so out
of town). His wife had seen a van come by with three
dogs in the car. That's all anyone ever heard.

To this day I dread to think of what happened to poor
Sasha. It was years before my sister got another dog,
not until she had a family of her own and got a dog
for her children.

*Hugs*

Sheryll

=====
"We need to be united and strong. We'll have losses and scares, sure. And you'll be there for each other, helping each other through the bad times."
 blpurdom - Harry Potter and the Psychic Serpent, Chapter 26

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