beddieX

I apologise beforehand, this is not poetry, nor even the best prose you will ever read and it's not about a lost one, simply a cry from the heart. I've stayed away from this thread till now as I find it difficult to read, or type, while crying. Yeah I know, a man who describes himself as old, bald, ugly and cantankerous. Then I found this, refound it really. It was written by a man by the name of Gary Paulsen, as the closing of his book, 'Winterdance', The Fine Madness of Alaskan Dog-Racing. It's a splendid read for anyone into dogs of whatever kind. ...............I was coming on fifty and had smelled the copper and it would not be the same again nor would I ever live again. Not as I lived. Not with the dogs. And how could that be? How could I live without the sweep of them? Without the blink on the horizon and the snap-joy of them and the reason they gave to life? How in the living hell could that be? All those questions were there then...........they are here now when I am fifty-three, and they will be here tonight as I go to what passes for sleep, and they will be here tomorrow when I awaken. How can it be to live without the dogs? Then the hardest thing of all-the phone call to a friend, another dog driver 'You have to come and take them all-pups, dogs, sleds, everything-every thing but Cookie. I have to have them gone when I get home or..........' Unfinished. Or I won't do it. Or I'll die. Or I won't be able to stand it. The break must be clean. He will take good care of my dogs, run the Iditarod with them, run with my dogs. My dogs. God. How can it be to live without the dogs?

Yes, although I've had one dog that took against them. One caveat, if you drop them the pitch can change. You can't hear them well enough to know the difference but the dog can and may well not recognise it. Avoid the adjustable type for the same reason.............