Well, they say its one of the most difficult things you must do in your life, and I hadn't experienced with my own dog until today at 3:10pm when my hunting campion of 15 years drew his last breath in my arms. I agree, it was a tough thing to do, I've not stopped shedding tears since.
Sol started out life as S.O.L., "(S)"Hit out of Luck, (SOL) for short, Solomon, for a wise king for long. The reason was that he was deemd "Sol" was he was droped in front of a pet store that didn't have facilities for dogs, and someone had left a litter of black lab pups, 9 in all, on the doorstep overnight. These labs were on a "Clearance" sale for 24 hours, due for the animal shelter after that where they would have almost certainly faced death.
When I asked them to take them all out of the cardboard box they'd been left in, the pet store owner thought I was nuts...but I was looking for a certain type of puppy, and I found it. This one pup just stared at me while the rest played like puppies. I made a funny sound with my lips, and this little pup who would be named Sol came trotting over to me, 15 years almost to this day.
He would hunt ducks, pheasants and chukkar for me for 9 glorious years, never giving up on those ducks that are wounded and like to dive and hold onto a weed in the bottom of the pond. Nope, Sol would surface after a try or two, duck in hand. He had a beautiful "soft" mouth, inevitably dropping the duck on the retrieve, which made for good duck meat when carving them up in the evening.
Sol was fixed at age 6 months before he knew what sex was, but that didn't stop him from trying to dry-hump any 4 legged critter that allowed him to...I always thought that was strange...but that was Sol.
I buried my companion, and "first child" between my wife and I this afternoon, wrapped nicely in an old camoflage hunting jacket that became his the first time he puked on it when he went hunting at age 11 months in Montana.
I'll miss that dog. They say its so tough to go through that you never want to do it again, but you know what? I disagree....I think those 15 years we had together was worth every second of his life, and mine, even though the last few hours are tough..
Love you Sol, Hunt'em up!
And thank you for the kind words, all.
