Today (March 31st, 2013) around 5pm, Gunnar Griego, eater of bees, affectionately known as Gunny Roo Roo, Smeagol, the Wrymn, and lately The Old Man, passed from this life. He was almost 13 years old. He was the best of dogs.
He passed in peace after spending some time with me, his person, and with one of his boys, and with hugs sent from afar from his other boy, and from his Dad. We played a little fetch, although he had to lay down and rest after only two throws, he had a little bit of chicken, although he really was not much hungry, and when the time came to go, he lay down upon the blanket and received more love from his person and his boy, we told him what a good boy he was, and how much we loved him, and how blessed we have been to have him in our lives. He closed his eyes and crossed over.
Where To Bury A Dog
There are various places within which a dog may be buried. We are thinking now of a Vizsla named Gunnar, whose coat was a flame in the sunshine, and who, so far as we are aware, never entertained a mean or an unworthy thought. This Vizsla will be buried beneath a sage brush, in his back yard, where he loved to hunt for lizards.
Beneath a cherry tree, or an apple, or any shrub of the garden, is an excellent place to bury a good dog. Beneath such trees, such shrubs, he slept in the drowsy summer, or gnawed at a flavorous bone, or lifted head to challenge some strange intruder. These are good places, in life or in death. Yet it is a small matter, and it touches sentiment more than anything else.
For if the dog be well remembered, if sometimes he leaps through your dreams actual as in life, eyes kindling, questing, asking, laughing, begging, it matters not at all where that dog sleeps at long and at last. On a hill where the wind is unrebuked and the trees are roaring, or beside a stream he knew in puppy hood, or somewhere in the flatness of a pasture land, where most exhilarating cattle graze. It is all one to the dog, and all one to you, and nothing is gained, and nothing lost -- if memory lives. But there is one best place to bury a dog. One place that is best of all.
If you bury him in this spot, the secret of which you must already have, he will come to you when you call -- come to you over the grim, dim frontiers of death, and down the well-remembered path, and to your side again. And though you call a dozen living dogs to heel they should not growl at him, nor resent his coming, for he is yours and he belongs there.
People may scoff at you, who see no lightest blade of grass bent by his footfall, who hear no whimper pitched too fine for mere audition, people who may never really have had a dog. Smile at them then, for you shall know something that is hidden from them, and which is well worth the knowing.
The one best place to bury a good dog is in the heart of his master.
Gunnar Griego you will forever be buried in our hearts....rest in peace my good boy.
Original by Ben Hur Lampman, edited for Gunnar Griego
