Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Say goodbye to Tiny

Someone shot my dog.

Tiny was born on this place. A Great Pyrenees, daughter of Chiquita. She was the runt of the litter, hence the name.

Sometimes I have to go out at night to check on an irrigation pivot. I drive when I do. Invariably when I’d get to the pivot, I’d see a white object slip quietly from the dark. My protector.

Tiny wanted little out of life. She never killed chickens, to the contrary, she protected them from coyotes and other predators, all night long, every night. She also guarded goats and cats. And us.

She’d wait to eat until the rest were done, as though she were shy about eating while others watched.

She had one litter of pups, only three. We gave two away and kept a single daughter, Pinky, due to the pink nose. Tiny got neutered after the pregnancy, so she wasn’t one to attract the attention of male dogs.

Three days ago, early in the morning, I saw Tiny walking as if in a daze, her soft white fur bathed in crimson from the neck down.

Manuel told me that a neighbor dog had been out in the front pasture, that perhaps she had been mauled.

I tracked Tiny to a farm implement where she laid down. Blood and saliva flowed from her mouth and a conspicuous small hole leered from a spot to one side of her nose.

Her breathing passages appeared obstructed. Her eyes showed signs of pain and shock.

I carried her to the house.

Tiny rarely went inside. She was an outdoor dog and like being an outdoor dog.

She spent the day laying around, bleeding. And for the first time ever, she spent a night in our home.

The next day she wandered out. I found her in a stall where she had raised her pups that night, I suppose a place of comfort for her. When I first spotted her I thought she was dead, but when I called her name, her eyes opened and she wagged her tail a bit, lifting one leg ever so slightly, as though to invite me to pet her.

I obliged.

Tiny survived another night.

The next day, Manuel pointed out that she could not drink, so I got a syringe and tried to squirt milk down her throat. She refused to swallow; the milk drizzled out of the sides of her mouth pink, mixed with blood and spit.

I took her to the vet, an aberration for me.

Vets charge too much money when it comes to dogs.

I held Tiny on a table in an observation room while we waited. She slid down slowly, relaxing even though afraid, trusting me. Finally the vet came in.

He looked into her mouth and showed me a groove in her lower jaw where teeth had once been. He told me he needed to sedate her to get a better look.

I left Tiny in his care, figuring I would come back in a couple of days to pick her up.

Ten minutes later, my cell phone rang.

The vet told me that a bullet had destroyed her lower jaw and the base of her tongue. He had nothing to work with.

I asked him to put her down.

A few minutes later I paid him a hundred and some odd dollars and walked out with an empty collar.

Although I never found his body, I’m pretty sure someone shot Fuzz.

I know someone shot Tiny. And I can’t understand, for the life of me, why.

9 comments:

  1. Man! I don't have word to describe how terrible that is. I know how it is to lose a good dog. But to lose one like this oh man I don't know what to say.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This was painful to read. I am so sorry someone did this to your protector. It's so "intentional" - the shooter must be evil. Any chance this was a warning of some kind?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I have had 2 Pyrenees. I lost one. I still miss him :(

    Sometimes life sucks.

    Idaho Homesteader

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sorry to hear about your dog . What a coward to shoot a dog . We had to put are harmless dog on a shock collar because of are neighbor complaining . but at the same time I've witness his little ankle biter on are property many times . Blessed are the peace keepers the verse that keeps me from giving him a piece of my mind

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks all for the condolences.

    May you be blessed.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hey Don Henry;

    Read this on the forum, which I banned myself from a while back, so that I'd never be tempted to reply to anyone there ever again. (or if tempted, couldn't do it).

    I feel it man. Was sitting at breakfast with my wife when I read this, and I pretty much lost it right here in public.

    I could talk about max, who we thought had kennel cough, till we found the entrance wound from a pellet gun, the collapsed lung, Dr opened him up, and found the cancer.

    I could talk about a buddy of mine, who has no problem shooting things, at all, without a lot of regard as to how many legs they got, if they have it coming, , who was charged by a pyrenees while out dirt roading on his bicycle, something he does to cover about 5 to 10k miles a year, was knocked down, breaking his femur and cracking his pelvis. and even he never blamed the dog, because he's not mean.

    Some folks are just mean, dirt mean.

    Sorry for all this.

    --

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. and I meant to add,

      There is no answer for it. We want to think there is, but there ain't. But I expect you know this, better than most.

      Delete
  7. So sorry. I think we all know there are mean shits out there, but it really hurts my heart that anyone would shoot a defenseless animal. It's bad enough we insist on killing each other ... leave the animals out of it. Again, so very sorry.

    ReplyDelete