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Where To Bury A Dog


Guest greytgreymom

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Guest greytgreymom

With all the loss we've had lately, when I read the subject of the e-mail, I was ready to write my friend back and say, "how thoughtless". I am so glad I took the time to read the e-mail.

 

It is the first time I've seen this poem. I hope it brings some peace to others out there suffering a loss. It's something we all know, but it is put so beautifully.

 

Cheryl

 

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Where To Bury A Dog

 

There are various places within which a dog may be buried. We are thinking now of a setter, whose coat was flame in the sunshine, and who, so far as we are aware, never entertained a mean or an unworthy thought. This setter is buried beneath a cherry tree, under four feet of garden loam, and at its proper season the cherry strews petals on the green lawn of his grave.

 

Beneath a cherry tree, or an apple, or any flowering 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 puppyhood, 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.

 

By Ben Hur Lampman

from the Portland Oregonian

September 11, 1925

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Guest raptorannie

when i lost my sweet elvis last november, a friend of mine sent me this poem - it touched me today the same as it did almost a year ago, now that i recently lost my beautiful nadine. what a wonderful poem and how true - they are always in our hearts...

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Thats very sweet...I have had to burry way too many in the past few years, but they ARE burried in my HEART forever !! No matter where we move or where we go, there ALL THERE FOREVER and EVER !!

 

Huggers & Slobbers

Rayne & Kirby

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Thank you.

Star aka Starz Ovation (Ronco x Oneco Maggie*, litter #48538), Coco aka Low Key (Kiowa Mon Manny x Party Hardy, litter # 59881), and mom in Illinois
We miss Reko Batman (Trouper Zeke x Marque Louisiana), 11/15/95-6/29/06, Rocco the thistledown whippet, 04/29/93-10/14/08, Reko Zema (Mo Kick x Reko Princess), 8/16/98-4/18/10, the most beautiful girl in the whole USA, my good egg Joseph aka Won by a Nose (Oneco Cufflink x Buy Back), 09/22/2003-03/01/2013, and our gentle sweet Gidget (Digitizer, Dodgem by Design x Sobe Mulberry), 1/29/2006-11/22/2014, gone much too soon. Never forgetting CJC's Buckshot, 1/2/07-10/25/10.

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Guest FullMetalFrank

Thank you for posting the lovely poem; I have read it before and it has always brought me comfort when I think of my dog Iberia; I have always regretted not bringing him home to lay him to rest and this poem makes me realize he is where he belongs, in my heart.

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