Blind Biker Dog Gilbert

Gilbert has ridden on my Harley since he was a baby. Last year he developed hereditary glaucome which destroyed his optic nerves and required his eyes to be surgically excised. It was a tough year but he recovered running free on the Oregon beaches and has been his old self.  He still brings balls and chases them but it’s a bit slower when it comes to finding them.  George the cat became his BFF after he lost his eyesight. They chase each other and steal each other’s food and sniff each other’s butt, all the good things cat and dog friends do together. That’s been a real plus because George was stand offing before.

I was a little concerned about taking Gilbert out on the motorcycle with me but needn’t have been. One evening I took him for a short spin and he didn’t seem to mind. Now he’s ridden with me as he used to on my commutes to and from the clinics I work at. He’s really frisky after the ride which shows me he likes it again.  When I go out to the motorcycle just like before he comes up  and crowds my leg. He used to jump onto the seat but his back doesn’t allow that and blind he’s as likely to crash into the side of the motorcycle as to land up on the seat.  When I’m riding and look back his ears are flying out behind him and his nose is taking in all the glorious smells.  It’s just so good.

I think he tells Dave’s biker dog Emory that he’s back to riding and the two are happy about that.  Max, Mack’s dog next door has taken to having conversations.  I’ve noticed Gilbert barking over at Max and Max responding.  Mack said one time he observed this exchange and it was like Gilbert said, ‘Did you hear that, Max? ‘

‘Yea what was it?’

‘I don’t know. Could it be the new neighbour car door?’

‘Yea, I think that was it.’  

Max and Gilbert have got along better since Gilbert’s become blind. Mostly the other dogs are really supportive and caring. 

Of course when Gilbert’s high up on the motorcycle going 100 km an hour with the Harley pipes blaring, he’s still top dog, eyes or no eyes.  

Princeton Hunting, Ponderosa Motel and Blind Dog, Gilbert

Laura and I had hoped to hook up with my old hunting buddy Bill Mewhort’s son and his wife.  They were hunting Clinton area this next couple of weeks. However Gilbert lost his first eye last spring to hereditary glaucoma and the second flared up a couple of weeks back. So our fall hunting season has been seriously disrupted, not to mention Gilbert had surgery to remove his second eye and is only now recovering.  It’s been a tough couple of weeks with him up most nights at first with pain and now just confused and anxious and lonely.  Coupled with that my colleagues had planned vacations and conferences so I felt a duty to cover for them as they covered for me when I was bow hunting  in August.( i.e. walking about in the woods with a bow immensely enjoying the fall and not seeing any game.)
I love Princeton. It was the first place I came to hunt, driving a VW Rabbit that got stuck immediately in the snow till I gave up and went home. I had my old Browning 30:06 from Italian Sports and a whole lot of enthusiasm but no luck. It was back in the late 1980’s.  I’ve come back again and again over the years mostly staying at Ponderosa Motel, sometimes Princeton Motel and sometimes the Riverside Cabins. Over the years I’ve tended to hunt the Pemberton area, Boston Bar, Merritt, Clinton and 100 mile House, and Princeton. I’ve also really enjoyed hunting north Vancouver Island.  We’ve gone far north for Moose, beyond the Prince George area, Pink Mountain or Fort St. James.
Bill Mewhort always laughed because I’d tell everyone I was a grouse hunter and just happened to shoot big game.  Once we were hauling home the first moose I shot,  these guys asked where I’d shot it and I held up my grouse and told them “just over there. Along the side of the road” . I  proceeded to tell them in detail waxing poetic, how I’d seen the grouse, what it was doing and how I’d stalked it, even explaining what what gun I’d used and the merits of the Ruger 22 rifle.  All the while they were looking at this great moose with a rack.  Bill was chuckling as we drove away saying, “Did you see their faces, how their jaws dropped when you went on about the grouse.?”
Dad and my brother Ron started me prairie chicken and partridge hunting with a 22 when I was 12 yo in Manitoba. I’m thankful to have grown up in Canadian home with Canadian values and an appreciation for conservation,  stewardship of resources and the depth of appreciation we have for game and harvest. In the city surrounded by pavement and cut off from God’s country too many people live in echo chambers eating food wrapped in cellophane and not knowing anything about what they go on and on about.
It was a nice drive up to Princeton through the winding roads of Manning Park,  leaving after clinics at  3:30 pm.  We had  the mandatory stop at MacDonald’s for Gilbert’s much loved MacDonald’s burger paddy which Laura breaks up and feeds him by hand. As adults we had cheese burgers and fed ourselves. Did I mention Laura spoils Gilbert, her fur baby.   I stopped for weekend snacks in Hope.  I’d phoned ahead to Ponderosa and made reservations with the lovely Korean Canadian  couple who have owned the motel forever.
At Ponderosa. the lovely lady I’d talked to had reserved the outer spot for my new truck.  The last time we were there, the high Pioneer ATV  in the back and the length of long box truck made it difficult to get out of an inner parking spot. Fortunately another hunter was leaving so I was able to get out.  The previous year I’d shot a deer and hung in the back of the truck till leaving in the morning. The lady had  reserved me a perfect spot on the outside  parking her own car there so no one took it. .  They’re always so helpful.
After checking in I walked across the street to the incredible 5 star restaurant, Little Creek Grill. They had prime rib specials so I got two for Laura and I knowing Gilbert would like the bits.  The only trouble we had was carving meat on styrofoam plates with plastic knives on our laps in bed.  Laura eventually grabbed the whole piece and began chewing on it like a lovely little animal. I cut through the bottom and spilt the juice on my pyjama bottoms. Gilbert thought this was all for his benefit happy to lick up every drop.   We watched NCIS on the cable tv.
This Korean Canadian couple have been the Ponderosa owners for  as long as I can remember.  They’re terrific people. The rooms have always been so clean and well cared for. Every year there are upgrades. They used to have a pool and hot tub. Now they have a Sushi Restaurant.  They serve a smorgasboard breakfast just like European hotels do and travelling tourists love it.  I had their sausage and eggs  today.  It was delicious. Normally I’m gone before 7 am and pick up coffee and sausage at the A&W here which opens at 6 -7 am.  Already there’s the local woman with her lap top there and the ubiquitous group of retired men having coffee and talking weather and politics.  No one in Canada is happy with Justin Trudeau’s government especially working people, country people and the middle class. So I passed the wisdom circle of grey hairs condemning his latest taxes on the disabled while I waited for my sausage and egger and hash browns.
I didn’t take Gilbert for the morning hunt. He’s still healing.  I left him in good company.  Laura was still in bed with her blond tossed hair.  Poor blind Gilbert was looking at the wall when I went out the door.
Before light I was unloading, “Charles” the glorious Honda Pioneer side by side 500 cc ATV  (all terrain vehicle).  There’s always a moment before going down the ramp in reverse that I have ‘doubts’.  Especially this week after the very funny Facebook video of a fellow loading his offload motorcycle and flipping himself over the hood of his truck. He survived. I’ve survived several ‘incident’s’ of ATV loading or off loading which trigger minor panic attacks for briefest moments and then I’m prayerfully thanking the Lord for survival.  Hunting trips are associated with so many such little victories.  I can’t say how many times I’m almost died going over cliffs, crashed or rolled vehicles.
I transferred rifles and my bag from the truck, secured the ramps by backing the truck over them, then was off on the back roads.  I should walk more. I used to sit in ambush before dawn for a couple of hours and I’d stalk a couple of hours. But since I got this ATV I’ve been pretty much a lazy road hunter. The fact is , I flipped my last ATV and had a bit of pain walking for a couple of years. That’s over but it was a great excuse to eat Hagen Daz ice cream and get out of shape. I’m also a bit older and the last deer I’ve shot have taken all my energy to get them to the truck.  I’ve concluded that I’m only going to shoot something close to the road simply because of the issue of hauling and loading.  That makes for a pretty good rationalization for not hiking as much. I do. I stop “Charles” and walk the trail ahead of me a lot but I’m impatient and don’t sit in ambush as much simply because I don’t quite know the flow of deer in Princeton. In Pemberton and North Vancouver Island I actually know where the deer highways are but Princeton I’m still exploring.  It’s fun too and I just love driving around off road on the Pioneer.  The grouse are along the trails too.
I carry my stainless steel Ruger 30:06 Rifle, Bill named “Sexcaliber’” , It was the first of the stainless steel rifles and very sexy in the light.  I use  180 grain Nozzler Partition bullets since they’re good for deer, bear and moose. I also have my Miura I Over and under 20 gauge shot gun. . I was shooting the Ruger semi auto 22L with Luke until our Sikh hunting buddy Sonny turned me on to the 20 gauge.  The 12 gauge tore up the flesh of the little birds and my 4:10 was just too light.  Luke hit the head every shot but I didn’t like missing grouse that would fly as I tried to get close enough. As Sonny had showed, the 20 gauge could be as good a head shot, shooting just above them but if they flew you could still drop them on the fly with the second barrel.  I’ve been enjoying this way of hunting grouse the last few years.
I saw a few doe and possibly one buck. A couple ran across the road ahead of me and I saw one dear in the distance so stopped “Charles”  and stalked uphill  to the tree line.  There I spooked the doe and the doe and buck were out of there. Sllogging uphill out of breath knowing this was good exercise, being fat and out of shape. but I did having trouble keeping  silent as I  was wheezing like a freight train.
The 2 grouse were kind enough to sit long enough for me to stop the vehicle, load my shot gun and sneak up the road where I shot one sitting and the second one on the fly. I missed Gilbert because I almost lost the one as it was wounded and hid under a log.  I found it with some serious searching but knew Gilbert would have pounced on it right off.
The morning was spectacular. It had started  in the darkness and cold with lots of low level  fog.  I’d had to scrape the ice off the windshields. As the day moved along the sun came up on the forest alive with fall colours.  Evergreens next to the perennials clothed in oranges, yellows and reds.  A great day to be alive.  I drove at a snails pace all over the mountain drinking Starbuck double shot canned cold coffee and breathing in the forest fragrance and the smell of cut timber.  There were dozens of hunters in town staying at the various hotels and motels but out in the woods I only came across one or two waving passing each other on the narrow logging roads. I saw a few camper vans in the back woods and one substantial camp of three vehicles. With all that much wilderness it’s amazing how alone one can be.
On the way back to the truck I saw a huge timber wolf run across a field crossing the road just in front of me and streaking up into the woods uphill.  I love seeing wild life back woods. I’ve not seen wolves around Princeton before but sure saw a lot up by Merritt and Clinton.  I’ve been blessed to see Cougar, Lynx, bobcats, coyotes and foxes on my various hunts. Sometimes I’m lucky enough to get a photo. I used to carry a camera but now all I’ve got along is my much loved IPhone.

At the truck I loaded the Pionneer finding this time I was missing a bolt on the ramp, That had happened last year and I’d replaced it in Princeton.  I’m always looking over my equipment but there’s simply no end of surprises.  No harm but that internal “oh shit!” thought.
Back in town I was driving down the highway and there was a deer.  A doe. Standing in front of the RCMP headquarters. I really do think they’re smarter than we think.
Back at the motel Laura and Gilbert were waiting. She’d had her bath and taken Gilbert for a walk.  We walked up to the hardware store where I got another bolt and a spare. In addition we got Gilbert one of those little flashing collar lights. He didn’t walk into any walls on this walk which was good.  We stopped at a little coffeeshop across from Save On.They had a whole bunch of pottery, home made candles and jams inside for sale.  We had quiche and turkey soup sitting outside in the sun with Gilbert drinking up the scents of other dogs passing.  I’ve always loved the town of Princeton, with it’s war epitaph, legion hall, all the funky little cafe’s and shops and everyone so friendly.  It’s nice too that all the housing that would cost millions in the lower mainland only costs hundreds of thousands of dollars here.
Leaving Laura to read and do cross word puzzles at the motel, my big now blind hunting dog,  Gilbert, the cockapoo and I headed out for the night hunt in the truck. With his waking me through the night and early morning hunt I’d needed an hour nap before getting going.  But there we were doing due hunting diligence.   Old fat white guy and old blind cockapoo.
I didn’t unload Charles but drove along the main almost paved logging road in my white Ford F350 truck enjoying the comfort and smooth ride.  Past trucks I’ve used for hunting taking them almost everywhere I now take the quad but this truck’s purpose is principally to haul my RV or to get Charles and me too the hunting grounds. The logging road mains are generally kept safe enough for cars with few potholes. Older, hunting now  I go very slow.  Too many times younger I almost went off cliffs.
Gilbert used to watch the road head like a hawk but now sniffs the air.  He’s such a great companion.  I didn’t see anything.I have no idea what he smelled.  I stopped the truck and stalked a mile ahead with him walking behind. I was thankful for the flashing blue light I’d clipped to his harness. He stumbled off the road a couple of times but only once did I have to go get him as he woofed his distress. He’d walked into a fallen tree and couldn’t find his way out of the maze of branches. By the end of the walk he was keeping closer behind me.  They say blind dogs in the wild just stay close to the pack and survive that way.  Gilbert’s learning. Back at the truck it was dark and we drove out as the sun set behind the mountains.
I stopped at the great pizza place in town getting us an all Meat Pizza. I love the Princeton Pizza. So another night of TV, an old movie with Anthony Quin and pizza. I walked Gilbert around the town with his flashing light.  Unlike the city a country town closes down for the night early and the quiet and peacefulness is a thing of beauty. Overhead I looked at the stars not masked by city lights and waited while Gilbert chose a perfect place to poop.
This morning I’ve just had breakfast while Laura is in the bath. We’re going home early. Sometimes I get an early morning hunt in and back before check out but today I just loved sleeping in.  Gilbert had me up at 3 am fuzzing and wanting to play or walk so I stumbled about the town for a bit before going back to bed. Laura told me he’d had her up playing a couple of hours before. He’s insecure in the strange environment and more vulnerable. He’s been able to sleep through a night in my place since his surgery a couple of weeks back so we think he’s still just a little scared and needs reassurance.
Right now he’s facing me and if you didn’t know you’d think he was looking, his hair covers his face.  That’s another good reason for a Beatles hair cut.
The fall weather and sunshine has been a god send.  It’s been a great weekend and I’m looking forward to heading back for a week of work. Might even get out for another weekend of hunting yet. Next weekend we have BC Ballet and Pacific Theatre to attend.

Despair, Blindness and Recuperation

Gilbert, my cockapoo dog, had hereditary glaucoma.  It presented with a red eye and pain which Dr. Douglas at Oak Animal Hospital correctly diagnosed. He lost his sight immediately in that first eye because the high pressure in the orb destroyed the sensitive optic nerve.    Dr. King of Western Canada Veterinary Eye Specialists eventually surgically removed that eye when the pressure didn’t come down with months of medication therapy.  The increased pressure in the eye was like a constant migraine for Gilbert. He slept a lot and was sad. When the eye was removed he was his old happy go lucky perky self returned.  We had the joy of this for the next few months until one day a couple of weeks back his remaining eye became red and painful.  Dr. King measured the pressure the next day. It was really high and didn’t come down with a week of therapy. He was completely blind now so we scheduled surgery which occurred last Thursday.
He was really sad. I had dropped him off in the morning at the New Westminister Western Canada Eye Specialist Surgery.  No food the night before.  Blind now , he banged into the door entering. There were several other dogs there.  Eye problems are common in dogs and especially in some breeds like pugs and cocker spaniels.  My favourite Scottish band is “Old Blind Dog” which I’d never realized highlights the problem of loss of sight in aging dogs.  I left my afternoon clinic to pick him up and bring him back. He was a bit disoriented and was able to sleep through my session with Brad. Brad and Gilbert have been friends for years so it was great that he just happened to be the patient I had to see that day. The staff at the Royal Columbia Clinic were so understanding too with Belinda and Dr. Waterson making all the right cooing caring animal love noises that made Gilbert feel safe. He was obviously scared and vulnerable.
Taking him home I saw him hesitant and anxious and confused.  He didn’t like being out in the open.  In my Miata and finally at home he was better. He hates the cone though it’s necessary to keep him from scratching out the stitches.  As the anesthesia wore off he wimpered and cried and my heart was torn out. I tried everything to get him to take the 25 mg tramadol pain kller. He’d had to have a half tab twice a day the few days before the surgery.  But he was getting wise to my evil machinations to drug him. He rejected his favourite cheese, peanut butter, and even left over steak. He’d take the food and spit out the pill.  Apparently the taste is horrid.  It was a breeze to get him to take the 250 mg Cephelexin antibiotic tablet. That’s twice a day.  I just gave him one today. To get the tramadol into him finally I found the deer heart I had frozen, microwaved it rare and slipped the pill in the red meat. He wouldn’t take any more of that dog delicacy after that but I got another in the Liver Pate Sausage which has worked since for the Cephalexin.
He cried and whimpered the first night. I’d hold him, stroke him, and he’d settle for a few minutes, then I’ d doze and wake again to his crying. I remembered my mother sitting up with me as a child when I had stomach aches.  I missed her.  I was crying in the night with Gilbert crying.  Talking to God of course. I’ve been feeling overwhelmed since my brother died, then my friend, George, and Richard and then Bill in ICU and Gilbert.  All along the government has accepted the lying false allegation of a female psychotic sociopath.  I’ve only justgot through  a year of another threatening to kill me and my dog and the College of Physicians and Surgeons with their ‘the customer is always right’ approach to complaints blaming me for upsetting the patient.  Only when he threatened to kill Justin Trudeau did the government  take me seriously about this man’s dangerousness. Most people think doctors are protected but we simply are not. The suicides of doctors and the attacks on doctors go unheard. I’m there in the middle of the night holding my crying dog fending off my own self pity and praying.  Not why Jesus?  That’s a child’s question.  But how do we carry on, Jesus?  Help me get through this. Help Gilbert please Lord.
The Jesus story tells of the Herod’s and Pilots of Government with all the cowardly beurocrats made famous at the Nuremberg trials by Arendt’s description of the ‘banality of evil’.  Our courts encourage ‘false allegations’. It’s the hallmark of aetheist leftist communist beurocracy and government.  But my dog is to me like Samson, betrayed by a woman, and his eyes torn out, blind and chained in the temple of the false god enemy.  I think of the poor guy as a part of me.  I feel I’ve attracted evil by fighting it. My last dog was murdered by drug addicts and drug dealers because I wouldn’t lie about their positive urine tests and say they were negative and that they weren’t marijuana smokers. I was working in the US at the time and government jobs required a clean urine test.  So they threatened to kill our dogs, the South African doctor and me, and then both dogs were killed.  The DEA told me my life was threatened.  I’d done the right thing but it’s always at high personal cost. I’m so upset these days seeing Justin Trudeau our lying prime minister pot head getting rich as a dope smoker and all the others who have invested in vice these days. The latest pervert was Harvey Weinstein, the love of feminists.  It’s all so troubling in the wee hours of the night unable to get a dog to take another tramadol, unable to stop my baby from fussing.
At least I didn’t think of killing him.  I have treated so many mothers who after nights of sick babies have thought that.I’ve never judged.  Gilbert’s been my reason for living.  With all the government hatred of doctors and me in particular I’ve felt this overwhelming urge at times to ‘identify with the aggressor’.  Anything to end the suffering and humiliation.  I have done my best devoted myself to doing what is right and yet I’m never perfect enough. I loved reading the American Specialist College report saying that Government and Insurance Companies demand 90 minutes of activities for every 15 minutes of patient visit before the patient has even stated their complaint. And I’ve chosen, as a Christian , as ugly as Christians are considered today,  to work in the area of ‘greatest need’ with the ‘sickest people’  where the patients and doctors are stigmatized together and the government creates most of the problems for both.  Everywhere I look there are strutting Eva Brawns finding fault and being critics and demanding more and more limelight , resources and money while in the front lines there’s never another pair of hands.
And here I am facing another night without sleep, after thousands of nights not sleeping for patients and strangers, and I’m unable to help my dog any more than I was able to help my brother and my friends.  I really wasn’t a very good son either because my Father and Mother deserved so much better. I was such a sucker for the shallow when I was young. I thought Pierre Trudeau was so smart and sexy until I was much older and realized how right my parents had been about what a terrible wasteful bully of Prime Minister he’d been. We used to argue over the dinner table. Dad and Mom didn’t like the drinking and drugging either.  I realize now they wondered where they’d gone wrong. Mom was Irish and blamed herself for all the wrongs and sickness of her children but never took credit for their success.  I think that if I was a better Christian or a deeper Yogi I could have healed my dog’s sight. I trusted the Vets and wonder if I’d stopped my work and devoted myself to only him maybe I could have found a cure. I felt that with my brother too that I should focus solely on his illness. Yet I’d told my ex wife I could treat her and her depression and addiction alone or I could go to work with hundreds of others but I couldn’t do both. She wanted all of me and was always angry that I wouldn’t bring her more drugs, that she had to go out and get her own and that we tried to interfere with her addiction.  I find treating addiction the greatest challenge of my career. Everyone hates you. The patients, the families, and the government but there’s the drug pushers and candy men like Trudeau and everyone loves them. I was a bar tender and I was so loved by my customers back then.  I hold my dog and calm him in the night crying and thinking about Jesus.  Jesus suffers with us. On the cross with the liars and the thieves.  I’m not alone with my dog.
We come through the night and I go to work and don’t make a mistake. The College of Physicians and Surgeons and the Lawyers and the Premier and the Prime Minister and the patients demand absolute perfection from the doctor. One mistake and I’m punished for years.  I must smile always too.  I’m judged most on customer service. It’s better to cut off the wrong leg than God forbid ‘emotionally abuse’ someone.  I stopped a doctor and nurse killing patients and have never been forgiven. They were important people.  It’s okay to police nobodies. I’m a scapegoat and a jay walker whose crimes allow countless beurocratic police to avoid bothering the Hitlers and Stalin’s, the Kim Jong Un’s of the world. Hillary Clinton got away with Benghazi, there’s Hanoi Jane, and yet we all know that some woman claimed to remember that Trump groped her 40 years before.
I left Gilbert at home feeling guilty and alone.  I’m thankful Laura, his other love was coming over later.  When I got back I took him for another walk. He balks at everything. It’s terrible to see.  I remember my Dad going blind and my mother going deaf.  Losses sap the confidence.  I just got hearing aids and a few years back after a year of sinusitis lost a lot of my sense of smell.  The tuberculosis medication I took after getting TB working on the northern Canada Indian reserves might have contributed. A year of dangerous antibiotic treatment and they still say I don’t care. I’ll never be as good enough and perfect as a beurocrat or Prime Minister.  So many people are above the law but we’re all caught in God’s law.  Life and death and for a few of us taxes.  There’s all those Liberals with off shore accounts and French Canadian corporations with government bail outs and the good honest criminals like Mafia and Tong.    I was just thankful I didn’t get AIDS when I was treating the AIDs dementia patients getting spit on by them.  I preferred the fellows threatening me with guns and knives wanting drugs.  I ‘m terrified of the unseen like death.  I’m so depressed and crying, walking my dog feeling his fear and not being able to do anything for him. He startles at the slightest sounds.  I’m ridiculous as a man. Only women can show their feelings in Canada. They lied and told me it would be good if we were vulnerable but that just let the lizards get ahead while we pointed to the vulnerable bits where they hit us again and again.
i pray the St. Patrick’s Breastplate prayer for us, Christ above, Christ below, Christ beside, Christ in front, Christ Behind, - I beg for protection for us both. I pray he gets well. I don’t know what I will do with another love gone. I remember that Peter and Gordon song, “I don’t want to live in a world without love.” My ex wives hated me for leaving them.  Ironically the one who left me remains friendly.  But the following ones ended in loveless addicted rages dominated by angry insane drunken mother’s in laws.  I think of karma and blame and keep coming back to how if I’d been a better person and followed the rules and turned a blind eye to the killing by my superiors and shut the fuck up and not fought city hall and maybe just agreed and been pleasant with everyone and done as I was told , maybe my dog wouldn’t be blind. I used to think it was because I drank and smoked dope too much one year, a year sailing, a year after decades of service and duty and dealing with disease and death, a year I thought I’d have a break but there’s no break.  Justin Trudeau’s today offering me marijuana and euthanasia.  He’s on the wrong side of history. The youth today want fentanyl.  Trudeaus still the gateway to the abyss.
His father made having babies too expensive and everyone got abortions instead. Mortgentaller the greatest butcher of Canada got the Order of Canada for killing Catholic and Christian babies.  Pierre Trudeau ruined the Canadian economy and made it such that only the rich and immigrants and those single mothers in the government harem had children. Others were forced to work when they’d have gladly had children and lived a life like Sophie, Justin Trudeau’s wife with her palace life and nannies and her feminist husband.  I’m old today and I am offered marijuana and euthanasia. They’re even denying the old and dying opiates unless they want to go to the free heroin injection sites. It’s a theatre of the absurd.  Waiting for Godot.
I am so happy when my dog pees.  The fear post surgery is dehydration. It’s so hard to get him to drink.. I was worried he might need an IV.  I had to drag him to keep him moving. He put his butt down and wanted to die and saw me as so unkind.   I was so horrible so unhappy dragging the little guy.  Meanwhile there’s a whole lot of people phoning the SPCA to report my Cruelty to Animals. They don’t really care about him.  They weren’t up all night when he had his other eye removed  or this last night. They’re just seeing this big ugly old white guy dragging a little dog with a cone on his head and it’s so terrible that horrid man doing that to that little dog.  But he’s moving. He’d rather lie down in a corner and die. I want to lie down in a corner and die. I don’t want to go to work. I don’t want to turn on the news. I want to sail away into a hurricane and spend another month at sea alone fighting cold and high winds and leaks and navigating against currents and winds and living.  This is Chinese Water Torture.  More and more taxes and everything costs more and more and everyone hates and scorns and complains and there’s never enough because all the money goes to Media and Senators and Sports and War. The Security Council of the UN is simply the principle arms dealers of the world. We’re living in the perpetual war that Marx wanted.  We’re never going to see a worker’s paradise. Arjuna and Krishna knew this.  There will always be war and Canada is an arms dealer protected by the greatest country in history, the American Empire.  And everyone lives a lie.
My dog wants to curl up and die and I want to curl up and die and realize how much I depended on his daily joy because now I can hardly carry on.  I know parents don’t suicide like single people. I know that families that stay together are the most successful.  I know that if I’d been a better husband my marriage might have lasted. I I know all the mental health statitistics. I go to church and meetings and pray and meditate but nothing I do prepares me for my dog inconsolably  crying in wee hours of the night.
Laura arrives and we’ve come through the storm.  He’s in despair the rest of day but obviously is better lying on the couch between us.  At night she’s up half the night and I’m up half the night.  But the tide is turning. He had a poop at night. Such a good sign.  I want to dance and shout hallelujah. I was dragging him about  3 am because he was crying so loud.  But he peed some more. When he returned he drank more water.  In the morning he perked up when another dog went by on . He’s trusting me and doesn’t need to be dragged but prances high stepping behind me.
It was a long day.  I barbecued steaks and he ate a whole one himself cut in bits and hand fed Laura and me.   I’m afraid of the future. More dying to come.  He may be through this storm but how long can we live. I’m in ‘acceptance’.  I’m in ‘surrender’.  I’m praying and just figuring everyone is doing their best. If the government folk could do what Einstein did they’d not be playing police for the the UN warlords.  I like George Carlin saying ‘they own us’. All the talk of slavery and it not about now. Richard says, “It’s like I’m here in today struggling to get ahead and get by and everyone I meet is saying that I’m supposed to give them stuff for free because of something that happened before they were even alive’.  I can’t blame them for wanting it or taking it.   I just don’t ever see them giving up anything to those beneath them in these ‘generational’ arguments.  It’s all about who sets the ‘terms of reference’.
I’m not that good a manager. My father had a hundred and fifty men working under him and I don’t feel I”m very good at taking care of my dog.  Everyone claims they’re just following the rules. Dad was different. He was a real leader, respected and admired. Not many like that these days.  Mostly the leaders lead from behind.  We laughed because Dad was never in his suit but always in work clothes down with the men getting dirty and taking risks.  Todays’ leaders shoot you in the back, throw you under the bus.  They’re effete school boys who come with a brand name.  They disparage the old. I worry about us getting older.
Everyone has been so supportive with Gilbert.  Friends have come by and asked how we’re doing. I’m always stiff upper lip.  I liked that Dave and Emory his dog , Gilbert’s friend, showed concern. He understands. Most do.  We’re all , everyone I know at least, working stiffs, middle class or lower, getting by, being abused and disparaged by the elites and caring for family while doing more and more work for less and less.  There’s no room for sick dogs , sick children, sick old people. All they get is marijuana and euthanasia.
I liked reading a book, My Dog Is Blind, by Nicole Horsky.  A book anyone could read. Not too heavy on information but useful and reassuring . I liked that she said only one person asked why I didn’t put the dog down. Everyone else was supportive. No one has asked or suggested I put Gilbert down. I thought of it.  We’re living in a throw away consumer society.  The government is savaging the old.  Pensions after years of work are less than refugee’s scab voter pay.  Only the rich get medical care they need because the middle class and poor get waitlists instead.  I liked my patient who said how sorry he was to hear Gilbert was okay after surgery. He’d said how if he had a dog being so poor he’d not have been able to afford that and the dog would have had to be put down.  I’ve always worked and learned young to save and even in siege and war have tried to put some aside for rainy days, and now see the government stealing even that like the English stole the potatoes of the Irish and Scots.  I am thankful I could pay for the surgery.  I would have had a child but the woman aborted my baby. I would have adopted but I didn’t want the government living in my home.  The women I knew had lost their children to political correctness. As many children the kiddy police have saved the abuse of parents and families here is as great.  I  worked in the area and saw the utter disdain and abuse of children of the vulnerable by the courts, not because the children were at risk but because the parents were different and not politically correct . Even having a dog is frightening in Canada with everyone watching everyone and everyone having an opinion. In communist countries it’s always like living in an old Invasion of the Body Snatchers movie and these busy body government agent politically correct folk coming out without any risk to themselves to report and judge their neighbors.  They can smash your windows if a dog is inside panting. I can’t be a man in this country without being condemned and now I’m an old white man long past his due date with an old blind dog.
But he’s better today. He slept through the night. He’s peed today. No poop yet but he took the antibiotic in the liver worst.  Laura has been here and she’s been reassuring.
I know it’s a storm. I’ve been in hurricanes and survived typhoons.  It’s weird watching trees fly over your head.  This too will pass. I’m crazy enough when I’m nearly dying, when people have been shooting at my house, and gangs have been facing me with chains and knives.  I escaped from a group of Muslim men who robbed me and were screaming ‘Kill the Infidel”.  I escaped from a drunk Indian shooting at me screaming ‘Kill the Whitey’.  The acute stuff is easy. The slow chronic stuff like blindness and pain and life are harder. I’m older and it’s harder to deny death. One of the greatest books of all time was  the psychiatrist, Ernest Becker’s “Denial of Death”.
This is just normal life. Gilbert’s better.  This too will pass.  The cone comes off in 8 days.   I'm grateful for the life that Gilbert and I have shared. I'm grateful for the excellent surgery. I'm thankful for Laura, George and friends.
Intergalactic Space Aliens will finally arrive. They're all look like unicorns and leprechauns.  God is good.