I wanted to write a post about Cowboy Joe’s death July 15, but this is the first time I can type with some decency. I’m writing more now that a splint is on the hand with the thumb fracture (Bennett’s fracture if you are a medicine geek like me.)
I’ve posted about C.J.’s euthanasia. I always euthanize my own pets, even my horses. All I could do this time with my casted arms was have Dr. Thomas insert the needle into the catheter in my anesthetized Joe’s vein, and I pushed the plunger, delivering the solution into his body. It is my way of honoring my pets to do it myself. In my book, Drinking from the Trough, I discuss this more.
Between the time Cowboy was anesthetized, and being given the last shot, I was given time alone with him. Of course, the waterfall of tears fell. I talked to him the entire time, alive and dead.
Nancy was with me to drive, carry the carrier, 11 # lighter than before CJ got sick. She was in the room when he went to the Rainbow Bridge.
As is my nature, I worried about Franklin, CJ’s littermate. They were close brothers. Not one to anthropomophize animals, I do know the horror of losing a sister. Frank has cuddled close for the last month; I leave the bed unmade so he can sleep against the pillow; he talks more; and most interesting to me, started lying on the table in the TV loft where his brother hung out with the rest of us. Frank even kicked off the table one of the Longhorn cattle coasters I bought at Texas Tech just as Joe used to do.
Frank has Ivy, whom he loves, and vice versa. Ivy gives him kisses. Frank, almost 16, looks good, but has a significant heart murmur. I was going to put Joe to sleep when I go to Arizona this coming December, but he didn’t stay comfortable that long. I wonder about Franklin, but all things considered, he’s doing fine, stealing my pens and yelling about this, prompting Ivy to run and get it. Ivy used to chew them to oblivion, but now she brings them to me.
Will Frank be able to be driven to Arizona at the end of the year with a stop in NM to visit Ivy’s sister, Cali, and her family? I can’t predict, but I’ll do right by him, count on it. My squishy, cuddling, purring Frank will get all the attention I can give him to get him through his grief all the way to his own end run.
Cowboy Joe Carlson
December 2003-July 15, 2019
May your memory be a blessing