A Long Weekend...

The past weekend was pretty rough. Not only did I have to sit through a show of 12 bands that had no concept of tuning, let alone the capability to finish a song, but my dog Kobi got really sick. After some emergency tests at the animal hospital, it was determined that he was struck by cancer, yet again, and this was his last call. We took him for a final walk on a beautiful sunny day, gave him some treats and had to put him to sleep on Sunday, April 30^th – his 10^th birthday.

You always know in the back of your mind that things like this are coming, especially given his age and past health problems, but it was so sudden that it was completely unexpected. Two days ago he was fine, the next morning he couldn’t even stand up. It’s hard to make sense of the whole thing, and even harder to see how badly he physically deteriorated in just 36 hours.

But, these things happen, and you have to move on. It’s the little things that make it that much harder to deal with. You never know how much a pet can impact your life until they’re not there anymore. It’s missing the wagging tail when you get home, looking in the backyard and seeing him run around, or play with other dogs along the fence. I’ll never know when the mail is here because the mailman won’t get barked at. The days when I’m working at home, he won’t be there sleeping at my feet or begging me to play with him. When I play piano I won’t have an audience… he really liked “Piano Man” by Billy Joel. Who knows how the ice cream bowl will get cleaned now? I don’t have to let him out in the morning, and when I leave, I don’t have to tell him I’ll be back soon.

The only good side is that there are no more pills or drugs, no more needles and no more pain. So sleep well buddy, we had some good times and you have no idea how much you’re missed…