rest easy, lunkhead
He had a hero’s build but he wasn’t a hero. His powerful legs, muscular chest and
rugged good looks were underlined by his strong, silent style. But his mysterious
past traumatized him, and he was skittish even as he barked furiously. We think
he was physically abused. We think he was the runt of his litter and used as a bait
dog for the fighting ring his first owners ran.
He wasn’t particularly bright, but he was smart enough to escape his tormentors.
If he’d taken the wrong turn he might have ended up doomed at the pound. Instead,
he wandered into the barn of our friend Nicholas and thus became Roameo. It took
him a long time to trust Nicholas, then Jude and her dog Robin, then me. He could
startle easily. We couldn’t trust him around children.
He didn’t heed commands particularly well. Once he walked through a screen door
rather than wait for it to be opened. At the end he was deaf and would only respond
to hand signals. Yet he was family and he was thoroughly loved. And Thursday he
drew his last breath as we held him and cried.
Here’s Roameo with Jude just before we moved to the farm.
This is right after we moved in.
He immediately grew comfortable in his new digs.
Right after that, we went to the animal shelter and he picked out Slinkee. In this
shot, he seems to be experiencing buyer’s remorse.
But soon they were great good friends, possibly because she let him win this round.
Slinkee opened Roameo up to the possibility of other friends. Here he is warming
to Ollie. Ollie’s not so sure this can work.
The first time Jude tried to bath Roameo, he freaked out and broke off the faucet
while trying to climb out of the tub. This was much later and much different. It’s
the most relaxed I’ve ever seen him, and will always be my favorite photo of him.
Here’s another shot of that bath. This is one blissed-out puppy.
Rest easy, lunkhead. I’ll think of you every time a load of snow crashes off the roof
and you’re not there to bark and scare it away.
Anchor Struck 
Such ultimate trust between Roameo and Jude – beautiful pic, for sure.
Love filled the room that day.
Golden labs are among my favourite breed of dogs. Roameo was a beaut. Kudos to you and Jude for the decision you made; it’s rarely an easy one and we often put it off too long. Or we feel guilty forevemore, worried we did it too soon. I still feel badly about putting our year-old pup down last June, eventually following the vet’s advice (and he’s an excellent vet who charged me next to nothing), as if I couldn’t possibly have done enough and should have kept searching for alternative treatments and handmade all her food and so on and so forth, when probably nothing would have worked. Now we have a 15-year-old girlysue whom Scott says won’t make another winter. We will hate to see her go.
Kate, when the time comes, please share it with us. You don’t have to face it alone.
A Dog Has Died by Pablo Neruda
My dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
next to a rusted old machine.
Some day I’ll join him right there,
but now he’s gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I’ll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship.
Ai, I’ll not speak of sadness here on earth,
of having lost a companion
who was never servile.
His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine
withholding its authority,
was the friendship of a star, aloof,
with no more intimacy than was called for,
with no exaggerations:
he never climbed all over my clothes
filling me full of his hair or his mange,
he never rubbed up against my knee
like other dogs obsessed with sex.
No, my dog used to gaze at me,
paying me the attention I need,
the attention required
to make a vain person like me understand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
he’d keep on gazing at me
with a look that reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, never troubling me,
and asking nothing.
Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea’s movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean’s spray.
Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.
There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we don’t now and never did lie to each other.
So now he’s gone and I buried him,
and that’s all there is to it.
Outstanding.