Reminiscing

[Minion Leeloo Lebowski]

I just wanted to thank everyone for their warm thoughts. I think the thing that upset me the most was seeing Tiger laying there struggling to hold on, because it was a perfect rendition of seeing our first dog die. Bo was the name of our first family dog; he was a nine year old boxer. He was a puppy from one of my grandfather’s litters, he bred boxers and one year my parents decided they wanted one. Since then we’ve been through three generations of boxers, Tiger being the last. Bo died while we were camping in the Adirondack Mountains, and unfortunately it was in the middle of no where so we couldn’t even do anything for him to help his suffering. We were in the middle of a giant field riding wheelers when he started acting and breathing funny, and suddenly he fell over and was struggling to breath until finally he couldn’t breath anymore. To this day we don’t know exactly what happened to him, my parents never had him examined when we got home. I think in a bizarre twist, it was the same thing that happened to Tiger. Bo was such a great dog, every night he would come into my room and check to see if I was still breathing by sticking his head next to mine, then go to my brothers room and do the same thing, then go downstairs and check everything out before settling into my parents room next to my mom and going to sleep. My dad said he followed him one night because he always wondered what he did each night. Anyway, Minion has been doing a great job at keeping moral high. I don’t think I’ve taken it as hard as my mother, she cried for two days, I cried once, but I think because we knew it was his time, it made it easier to let him go, or maybe because I have Minion now. I don’t know. Most boxers don’t live past 10, Tiger was pushing 13. I think the hardest one to loose was Twiggy. She was my grandfather’s last boxer before he died. I grew attached to her because I didn’t know my grandfather that well, I spent a lot of time in the hospital when I was young, and so I felt Twiggy was all that I had left of him. Twiggy was 8 when we had her put down because she got real sick with cancer. It’s hard losing a pet, because they become more than that, they become a part of the family.

[Pat Daly]

Boxers are wonderful and it hurts to loose them or any other pet doesn't it.

we love to have our dog, Lady, take us caming. we just bought a travel trailer so we hope to
have Lady take us to most of the US camping with pets.

Any advise you can post for all of us at Petbrags about camping with your dog, cat or other pet would be appreciated.

Thanks! Lady dog goin down the road.