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Leda74
50 years old
Gender Not Set
Enfield, Middlesex, U.K.
Born June-24-1973
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Joined: 14-March 04
Profile Views: 816*
Last Seen: 10th June 2010 - 12:46 PM
Local Time: Mar 29 2024, 01:20 PM
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Leda74

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15 Mar 2004
Today was super-tough. I work very close to my house, so I always walk home in my lunch hour as it only takes ten/fifteen minutes. But Dad had taken Mum out for a walk. I hadn't known they were going to do that; I don't think I'd have come home if I had, as much as I know I have to face it some day...because there were no handsome brown eyes waiting there for me. And that hit hard, very hard indeed. The words, "You wanna biscuit, buster?" were actually on my tongue for a moment in my confusion, before I started to cry.

I know these moments will get fewer and further between, but for the moment it's like a fresh cut; the slightest knock sets it bleeding again.

sad.gif sad.gif sad.gif sad.gif sad.gif
15 Mar 2004
Thunder growls...
The knifeman stalks, his victim ever closer.
I cower, I tremble, I hide my eyes.
He strikes!!

But I...I am safe.
The image of fear plays only on the TV screen
But I am safe.
I have my champion with me
And know that I could never be
More secure than this.

Dozing but still vigilant
You lie at my foot.
The terror is illusion
Your guardianship is reality.

As the credits roll I reach
Gently, softly, down to the floor to find
Fur as warm as fresh bread.
My heart becomes light
And the dark of the night
Holds no dangers for me.

The warm fur is gone now
The floor is quite bare
I watch movies alone
And for a while, miss your solace badly.

But whenever I feel
Alone, afraid, hopeless, left out in the cold...
I know all I must do
Is reach way down inside
Where I know I can find
That protection, still whole and alive.

For the ones who love us most
Are always close.
And nothing
Nothing can take that away.
15 Mar 2004
I'm not sure if this is the right place, but I wanted to share memories of some of Billy's favourite games. If anyone wants to add stories of their pet's favourite games as well, that'd be nice smile.gif

I'd have to say Billy's #1 all time favourite game was "Snake Attack". Honestly, we must have played this at least once a night through his whole life, even when he was older and couldn't play for long. What I would do first was lay on the sofa, and Billy would be laid on the floor, parallel to me. I made my hand into a "snake", and would open my fingers and thumb as if it was sneaking up to bite him. Then I'd inch my hand towards his head, verrrry verrrry slowly. He'd never look directly at my hand, but out of the very corner of his eye instead as it approached. At the very last moment, before the snake could grab him, he would whip his head around and pretend to snap at it. I'd pull my hand back quickly and laugh out loud. We'd do this several times over, until Billy decided to take the offensive....at which point he'd roll on his back, grab my wrist with his paws and bite repeatedly but very gently at my fingers.

Then there was "Big Stick". This was an outdoor game, and one we could only play in the early Spring when the keepers pruned the trees in the park. I would walk along, pointing at small sticks and twigs on the ground from time to time, saying, "Get the stick!!". Billy would promptly pick them up, bite them in half and drop them, waiting for the next instruction. After a time of this, though, I'd point to one of the HUGE fallen branches from the trees and again say, "Get the stick!!". And he'd always fall for it too...you ought to have seen him trying to pick up a 14-foot long, 9-inch thick tree branch as if it were a twig biggrin.gif

"Hide & Seek" was a popular one, too. I had a few regular hidey-holes around the house. In the hall, in the cupboard space under the stairs, or behind the kitchen door. I'd wait until Billy went out to the garden, then choose my hiding place. My dad, in on the game, would call him in and excitedly ask where I was. Scampering around the house, Billy would find me within a few seconds. Mostly, I admit, when he heard me giggling. Then he'd just sit outside the hiding place and bark indignantly at me until I emerged to chase him back through the house to the garden.

"Catch The Kleenex" was great. I would stand in the middle of the room, tilt my head back and put a Kleenex over my face. Then I'd puff it as far into the air as I could, and Billy would unfailingly leap like a salmon from a sitting start and snap it out of the air. Once on the ground with his "prey", he'd mercilessly rip it apart! A similar game was "What's In The Bag?", which almost always ended with Billy disembowelling the plastic shopping bag to reveal the hand that was rustling inside it smile.gif

When he was really hyperactive, as he sometimes could be as a puppy, a few rounds of "Tag" would take the edge off him. Simple, really...the object of the game was for either Billy or myself to remain in possession of the nominated toy, while evading pursuit around the dining room table. That was, for me, an early lesson in physics: four legs take corners better than two rolleyes.gif

Would anyone like to share their playtime stories?
14 Mar 2004
It's been just three days since I lost the most constant friend I have ever had in my life, and already, so much about my existence since is strange and empty and many things I took for granted have changed irreversibly.

My family took Billy in, in March 1992, when he was four months old and I was 17. He had come from another home (not that it was much of a "home" for him, really) where he had been neglected emotionally, and had his whiskers cut off by cruel children. He was our second dog; our first, Olga, had passed away just weeks before at only three years old from an intestinal infection.

We hadn't been expecting to get another dog so soon. But my schoolfriend assisted at a small animal shelter, and she had called me earlier in the evening to say that a puppy had been taken in, but that there was no long-term space for him. And would we act as foster carers for a week or two until he could be found a permanent home?

I don't think I need tell anyone here that two weeks is more than enough to fall in love, especially with a gentle soul like our Billy. So he stayed, not for two weeks but for twelve years full of love and fun and laughs.

But he's gone now, and I am finding it so, so very hard to cope without him. He was my solace during depression, agoraphobia, unemployment, a disastrous relationship and, in the last few months, my mother's fight with cancer too.

And what makes me feel worse - if that is even possible - is that I had to make the decision to send him away for something which, if he'd been some years younger, would have been easily operable....a benign tumour on his back leg had grown so large that it broke through the skin and was becoming ulcerated. But as he was elderly, and had an enlarged heart, the vet didn't think he would survive an operation.

I know in my mind that what I decided was right. But I can't reconcile my mind with the whole of my heart, which misses Billy so much that it's in agony.

It's just too quiet in our living room now without his soft snores, or the jingles from his collar as he scratched his ear, or the scrape on the back door as he asked to be let in or out, or the clang of his water bowl to let us know that he was out of water.

I knew weekends would be the worst part; I can't sit down to a late-night movie when there's no fluffy body under my left leg. I just can't. Not when that's the way I've done things every Friday and Saturday night for a decade. If I tried, I'd just stare at the empty space behind the armchair where his bed was, instead of at the screen.

Ohhhhhh. Will any of this pain ever get better? Because right now, it feels like I'm struggling to stay alive inside.
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