Hello Mark,
Two springs ago we lost our dog Shasta (root beer name) after 18 great years. What a sweet, gentle girl she was. She loved it when the kids crawled all over her dog house, she loved getting buried in leaf piles in the fall. We got her from a fellow at work, she was sort of an unplanned life, but she sure fit into ours. She was totally healthy her whole life, one evening after her walk, she stumbled on the stair. I didn’t think much about it since she got right up and continued on. Next morning I found her passed away laying at her doghouse condo. That was the day of my daughter’s friend’s Bat Mitzva, I tried to have a good time. Then I buried her. About a month later, C.C., our old, about 17, cat died. He had a broken leg in a cast from a mishap and he was going blind. My lasting memory of him was my daughter and I chasing after him as he hobbled and wobbled down towards the woods, we knew he would not find his way back. He died peacefully on his electric heating pad. As if this was not enough, about another month passed and we said goodbye to Kitty Bag, she was born in 1989. The runt of the litter. After many years, she ended up having 2 or 3 teeth left, many were removed by the vet, the gummed her food for a long time. Her kidneys finally failed, we had been giving her the fluids via needle and bag under her skin for several months. It only prolonged her life, she was just a shell of her former self. Like God is watching out for us, a new stray cat, Pokey, has come out of the woods and into our lives. It is unbearably tough loosing these characters but they leave such sweet memories. We can still bury our pets in our yards out here in Fauquier County, not so in Prince William. Our cemetery, with homemade engraved headstones expands as our lives go on with only memories. Shasta, C.C., Kitty Bags, Beauregard, Bilbo, Cinnamon, Hurricane, Khubla Khan. We will always remember you.

Bill from VA