After our pasture excursion, that same day, I decided to do a little cleaning at Granny’s.  You know the typical house hold chores that one does.  Garbage, sweeping, and or what have you.  Gathering up the trash I set it outside on the porch to haul out to the dumpster at a later time which I had done all the time.  The dumpster is down by the shop and one can become lazy especially after a hike.  Shelby was out with Darren on the 4 wheeler and after she came in the house she said ‘MOM” there is trash all over Grandmas yard. See MC’s and Gramps house is just a few yards away. Kinda sorta like neighbors in town. The original farm house that great grandpa built had been sold years ago and MC and Gramps built theirs where that had set. Granny’s is just beyond the tree row that was planted around 100 years ago. 100 ft pine trees, beautiful lilacs, and cedars have graced the farm stead for many years.

Here Maggie had gotten into the trash.  Not sure why she did, she had never offered to do so before but at any rate we found ourselves cleaning up MC’s whole yard.  She did it good, everything was tore up and everywhere.  Couldn’t even get upset with Mags as it was my fault after all and in hind site I wish I would have taken it down to the dumpster.

See Maggie came up sick the next couple of days.  She laid around and wouldn’t eat.  I had feared that it was my doing either from the pasture walk or getting into the trash.  We had made several calls to the vet Dr Jo and Kathy. We tried everything with many suggestions from them and nothing worked.  I finally called one more time to have them see her about a week and a half later.  We set up an apt and arrived to the vet, they had to muzzle Maggie to make sure she didn’t hurt anyone.  Now Maggie was loved and adored by us all and never offered to bite anyone and always had a tail wag for those, but she was a Big Dog who was protective of us.  Upon examination it was determined that she had a full blown blockage in her lower intestine which meant either surgery which would have been very expensive with no guarantee she would live and or be “put down”.  I could feel the tears well up in my eyes as I looked at MC and Gramps.  MC is a tough Ole gal and she looked at Dr Joe and Said….well I guess…then she looked at me and said “say goodbye to Maggie” “MY GOD WHY, WHY THIS DOG, shes a good dog.”  I bent over and buried my face into the side of her neck and gave her a hug with tears streaming down my face.  “Goodbye Maggie until we meet again I hear Heaven is a great place to be.”

Maggie

Maggie overlooking the Buffalo Coulee