Losing a 12-Year Friend

Remembering Family Dog

Jorge. Photo By: Timothy A Rowland
Photo by: Timothy A Rowland

Jorge Grows Up

Obviously, I can’t write out Jorge’s entire life. Twelve years on paper would be more than a book. Instead I will give you some of the highlights. Circumstances and some failed attempts at plans, kept me at home longer than I had ever planned on living under my parents’ roof. Well, I should say my parents’ “roofs” because as a family we always traveled a lot. We were a military family so I guess it just stuck in the family for a while even after the days of deployments and being stationed were gone. Because of this fact, we discovered very quickly that Jorge loved to travel. If he heard the word “go” or “come on” then he would run to the door. As soon as you opened the door, he was standing at the back of the SUV just waiting to have the back opened so he could jump in. He was all for a road trip; didn’t matter if it was to the vet’s office down the street, or a drive across several states. It also didn’t matter how many times he had been at a place; he was going to sniff everything. Every time we stopped to let him walk around and us to stretch our legs, he was sniffing every tree, bush, car, building, piece of paper, and blade of grass he came across. Turns out we picked the right name for him…he was Curious Jorge.

Photo by: Timothy A Rowland

Our Heartbreak Arrives

Many years later, he got slower and changes started to happen. His fur would shed even more than it used to, he would lay around more, he became hard of hearing a little. All of these things, we blamed on the fact that he was much older now and like humans, things change as a dog grows older. Many times, we took him for unscheduled veterinarian appointments if we thought something was wrong. Each time he would get a clean bill of health and the veterinarian would say what we thought; he was just getting older.

Photo by: Timothy A Rowland

He Is Still Missed

Rather than go into the heartbreaking details, I will simply skip and say that eventually we had to take another drive to a veterinarian in the nearby city to have him relieved of his pain; which wasn’t going to end. We got opinions of vets in one day and plus it was obvious that it wasn’t going to end with him getting better. So the choice was made, after trying again to let him go at home, to make that trip to the doctor to let him assist. One of the hardest things we’ve ever done. Jorge was cremated and his ashes placed in a beautiful engraved wooden box. The box sits where his bed used to be. His stuff was donated to the local animal shelter.

Photo by: Timothy A Rowland
Photo by: Timothy A Rowland

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I’m an every day human Xennial living in the Southeastern United States. I have many interest. I just want to improve your life and maybe entertain you.

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Timothy A Rowland

I’m an every day human Xennial living in the Southeastern United States. I have many interest. I just want to improve your life and maybe entertain you.