Saying Goodbye to Sebastian

 

I lost my dog Sebastian this past Friday. Unless you are a "pet" pr "animal" person, you probably have no idea the amounts of grief and pain a pet parent goes through when they loose a pet.
Seb was my first dog; my only dog; and a really special dog.
Like almost all my pets, horses, etc. He was a rescue. I found him at the barn one morning when I was meeting my farrier (blacksmith) to put shoes on one of my horses. He had a collar and a half a leash.
We found out from calling the number on his tag that he had passed through a couple of owners in his 6- months, finally chewing through his leash and escaping from the porch rail he'd been tied to for the day.
He had run 15 miles or so from Roxboro, NC to my parent's farm in Milton, NC. Starving, alone, and needing a family, I took him in.
He became best friends with my sister's black lab, Misty, and together with our dogs, we romped all over the surrounding countryside; in the river, the woods, with our horses......

 

(In this picture, if may look like he was chained to that porch swing. He was never chained anywhere; I won't chain a dog. That is the swing's chain.)
Life with Seb was not without challenges, and being a Dalmation, he was inherently hyper, goofy, and got into trouble. I took him through Obedience school and after that he was much easier to handle.
He was run into by a car and lived; suffered through an ear flap hemotoma and laser surgery to remove it; once he got a huge fishing lure stuck in his gums after rooting around under the chest freezer in our garage.

Misty died two years ago the week before Thanksgiving. We were heartbroken about it, of course. Especially my sister. We buried her beneath a huge oak tree on a hillside on our parent's farm overlooking the horse pasture.

Seb only lived with me in my "new" married home about one year. His health was declining and I knew it. He was till happy to the last, however. He was 12 years old - pretty old for a Dalmation.
I will not go into details about the state of his health, of the specifics of his last few hours here on earth. Though I wanted him to die peacefully at home with me, it wasn't going to work out that way. Instead, my husband carried him to the truck, to the vet's; and we had him put down. But I wasn't there. I couldn't watch. I stayed at home, and lost it.

We buried him beside Misty under the oak tree; together again - within days of the exact 2 year anniversary of Misty's death. Call me corny and childish, but I plan on planting a fern between them. Yep, just like the book.

Goodbye, Seb and Misty. I love you and miss you both.