To Murphy and all those who have moved across the Rainbow Bridge....
For us, we lost one of my two best ever friends back in 2015. Denny was a cocker rescue, about five years old when we got him in 2008. We named him after William Shatner's character in 'Boston Legal'.... and my wife even told Shatner that when we met him years ago.
Denny was very similar to my best dog Freddie, another cocker born at around 3AM on a September morning back in 1992. Silly me even passed around Swisher Sweets at work to celebrate him and his two brothers' births. The mother dog was a Christmas gift for my ex a couple of years earlier, after the last of her two dogs had died about fourteen months earlier.
Anyhoo....less than two months after Denny's passing (within two days of noticing he was ill), the cocker rescue group brought in a few hopefuls to PetSmart. Quite difficult to walk into that store and not have a dog at home to buy supplies for. And, as all here well know, that time of not having the dog to talk to, having to pick food up off the floor because there was no longer someone there to clean it, no one to hog the couch or bed, .... is such a gut punch void. I simply went to talk to one of their reps that was there when we got Denny, say 'thank you', make a donation, and go home. My wife told me "do not fall in love with any of them, it was way too soon, and Denny was semi irreplaceable." And that was my intent.
Well....they had a merle colored cocker, almost a year old, who didn't care if kids came up to him and petted him without warning, and was friendly as hell. Drove the two miles home, told the wife 'ya gotta come and check this guy out'.
Eight years later, Jesse (Pinkman) has been a momma's boy, shadows her 90 percent of the time when she's awake, but he'll be down here in my office at night laying on my left foot. He'll come up and talk to me if I'm not up by 830AM, then proudly run downstairs and tell his Mom that I'm on my way down.
We've been doing multiple eye drops over the past few months to keep the glaucoma pressure in one eye low. Well, there's other stuff happening, and he's scheduled to have that right eye removed next month. Yeah, it's costly, but our being frugal for decades allows us to pay for it. We figure he's been basically blind in that eye for weeks, so we're mentally OK with what awaits him. On top of his MCL surgeries a couple of years ago in both hind legs, he's been one expensive dog.
He's lucky we have deep pockets. We're lucky to have had this sidekick during all of our illnesses and broken bones as well.
Our former housesitter for our trips Facetimes with her Mom when she now house sits, so that she can see and talk to Jesse.
Part of that image is in the bottom right.