Monday, October 01, 2012

Goodbye boy

I'm not sure if I ever told you about Booch.

Booch was a giant, clumsy, overzealous, lovable lunkhead of a dog. When I say giant, I mean that he was the most beautiful Doberman - Black Lab mix that you ever did see and he was so big, that he could rear up on his hind legs and lick my face without stretching out completely. It took two leashes to walk him, and those I had to wear like a harness.

Booch was approximately 1 month older than Chango so when I met his owner, he suggested that we start taking them both to the dog park. I insisted on waiting until my boy was just a little bit older than the 9 weeks he was when I got him, which is probably a good thing because it turns out, that Booch was at least twice his size. As they got older, they would vie for my attention.
Over the last 4 years, there was a lot of back and forth dog sitting and visits to the dog park. Despite his need for a whole lot of training, I loved that dog. He was bigger than me. His head, spanned my lap, where he would lay it during the times that he would stay with me. Chango treated him like an annoying big brother and Baby thought he was the bestest thing next to her own dog. He was a part of my little family.

Booch's owner has an apple tree. Since he was a giant horse of a dog, he ate the apples. A lot of them. All the time.  Which didn't really appear to be a problem until Booches was out for a run and the cyanide from the seeds finally hit his system.

That was three weeks ago. I found out about it last night. I'm heart broken. I'll never get to pull his long velvet ears again or complain when he steals a kiss.

This post has two parts. One to honor the memory of a critter occasionally referred to as Chango's "brother". And the other to beg you to watch what your pets eat. I know I'm incredibly lucky that aside from grass, Chango doesn't really eat anything that I don't tell him to eat. (except that one time when he ate my steak, but I can't really blame him for that since I left it on the coffee table) But I know dogs who eat anything they can get their paws on. I've heard stories of blockages and perforations, and now an accidental poisoning. Shit happens, unfortunately. And we can't control everything. And apples, we eat them all the time, right? but we take the seeds out. I knew you couldn't feed apple seeds to turtles or parrots, but I never thought about dogs.

I sure did go home and give extra snuggles to Chango last night.

2 comments:

Chickie said...

:( Poor, Booch.

I had no idea that apple seeds were poisonous to dogs.

Ginamonster said...

They can be, apparently. I didn't know either.