Great Dane Lady Horacia

My beloved Pup, for your 3-year anniversary – it´s incredible how present you are, even when you hide in your clouds – I want to tell you a little bit of the beginning of our shared history:

Dear Hori,

you weren`t yet born when one afternoon in spring 2003 I was walking my beautiful St. Bernard Wasko in my then hometown of Thüle in Germany. It was nice and sunny and we weren`t the only ones to have the wonderful idea of a walk through the woods.

I don`t really know if it was hormones – obviously Wasko`s, not mine! – or what, but suddenly there she was: beautiful, elegant and golden, standing proud in a clearing, and there we were, paralized and me rooted to the ground by 80 kilos of hairy dog who wouldn´t move. It was love at first sight with a blond great dane girl: Emma.

I had to promise him then and there, that I would find him a girlfriend just like her, it was the only way to be able to go back home without having to forcefully drag him along the road by his leash. And then some people say animals can´t understand our language!

Wasko died shortly after this special day in a sad accident that left me dog bereaved and heartbroken… again.

And so it came, a couple of months afterwards, when I was on the mend and my life needed a new pup to replace the sadness and emptiness, that I found my way to a great dane breeder near home who opened the doors of his kennel and his home to me. Of course, it turned out to be Emmas breeder, who actually was your great – dane – cousin.

They didn`t have puppies then, but one huge, longlegged girl was pregnant and would deliver within the next couple of weeks. This gave me hope and the first tentative rays of happiness started to shine.

Without wanting to sound shallow, but very decided nontheless, I told the breeder that I wanted a golden baby girl… and that I probably woudn`t take a different colour nor a male doggie. That had been the essence of my promise to Wasko.

Well anyhow… I needn´t have worried. One afternoon in May I got a call from the breeder telling me the pups were born, fine and healthy and I could come and visit. There were 7 pups in the litter, all beautiful but only one completely golden… and it was a girl: YOU, my dear Horacia!

Quite simply: it was meant to be.

… but we miss you still.
We think of you every day, you are woven into our daily routine like everything else. We think of you, when the clouds light up in the morning and someone in the family says: “Look, Hori is up already and needed more light!”, and during the day every time some strange noise startles us und we start laughing thinking what you would have done: two or three loud barks and jumping into my lap!

Yes, your courage is turning into a legend!!!

Of course, knowing that today is two years since your heart couldn´t keep up with all the strain, this morning I woke up thinking of those last days we had together and our last shared walk.
Maybe I am a selfish person, but each time somebody tells me they´ve lost a pet, I can´t keep my tears from falling thinking of you. But it enables me to feel their pain and maybe help them with kind words and the kowledge that nothing does really help, other than life going on.
Your babybrother Emilio will turn a year in October, and happily will always know how it feels to have fur between his fingers. We have adopted a sweet cat a couple of months ago and Castaño and Oly have welcomed her into the family. Julia still talks about you and sometimes when my eyes become teary asks me if I´m sad because you died… kind of complex explaining death to a three-year-old… but there you go, nothing like experiencing something, to teach us how life works.

Anyhow, just wanted to let you know, that it was wonderful having you with us, no matter how long it lasted. In retrospect I would always choose the pain of losing you over having never met you at all.

Lots of love dear pup,

Cecilia

My dearest Hori,

so much has happened since you left us, and still, we feel your empty space every day.
The good news is that we now are able to laugh remembering your odd ways and crazy doings. Somehow you are always present, even though others can´t see you. Kind of like with “Calvin & Hobbes” your “spirit” (the little stuffed dog you loved so well) comes to life when nobody is looking.

Even though I could not understand it last year, the miscarriage I had shortly before your diagnosis somehow fit in with the events that followed… Your parting woud have shadowed the whole pregnancy.

I am now pregnant again and expecting your human baby brother in about 6 weeks. My tears of joy mingle with tears of regret because he will never know you. Your sister Julia, now 2 years and 2 months old still remembers you and even plays with her new doggie under the tree where we buried you and tells me she goes and plays with you. It really is endearing.

You will always be like my firstborn and everything we lived through together will remain with me forever.

We love you dear pup… and hope you are having fun up there.

Keep in touch,

Cecilia

… on the surface I might be my old happy self, but not one day passes without me missing my girl terribly.
Worst of all, I feel like it should hurt less, but it doesn´t. When I look out of the window I can see where we buried her and I so whish she would come back to us… where she belongs.
Thank dog for family, fellow doggies, summer, work and so on for keeping my mind from falling into this dark sadness pitch.
Hori, you are wonderful and will never be forgotten.

Love

C.

Mi big girl is gone and I still feel her and hear her… but most of all, I miss her.

Yesterday I went to get some food for Castaño at the vet’s and this little thing came dashing from under a shelf to say hello:

I thought he had gotten himself a pet and congratulated him on how cute the girlie was.

Well… short story: He had found her in a cardboard box at a corner two days earlier and took her in. He was trying to find her a home.
We left toghether and an hour later she got her name, Olympia, and a new home, where she hopefully will be very happy.
One thing is for sure: Castaño and Julia are absolutely delighted… and my husband and I laughed more in the last 24 hs than in the whole of the last one and a half months.
Hori would have loved her! She loved little and/or big pestering doggies and would play for hours and hours… she was the most patient soul.

I like to think that Horacia guided this girlie to us… or maybe us to this sweet pup. But in any case I’m sure she would have approved.

Olympia’s first day with us was heartwrenching, because I couldn’t stop wishing Hori was there to play and see our new family member… but it was also healing in a way only new needy life can be healing: Olympia’s eyes kept saying “thank you”.

Julia’s laughter and Castaño’s playful barking are a balm on my wounded heart and will help to fill, at least partially, the emptiness Hori left.

Almost 10 days have passed… and she still is my first thought in the morning and my last one at night. I don’t seem to be able to accept the fact that she isn’t there any more, and that she isn’t coming back.

I look out of the window and see her running to the horses (of course stopping some 4 meters before them, because they are bigger and she was afraid of them) or barking at a strange sound outside.

When I see rainclouds coming toghether I think of getting her inside so that she doesn’t get wet…

She is so present in our lives with all her small dear character flaws!

I feel like a traitor when I think of getting another dog to lift the spirits of my other dear doggie, who is now alone and prawls Hori’s special places…

This morning, at the end of our short morning round (water, pee, looking at the birds, hopping a few feet) my beautiful Hori just looked at me, hopped two or three steps and then suddenly ran over the bridge before I could realize what was happening. Oddly, even in her last moments she managed to make me smile. Yes, it was so quick, that I was relieved to see her go without pain or suffering.

I like to think she gave me this last present knowingly, that she waited for me to be with her this morning, to go these last steps with her. She no doubt knew… They are so much wiser in some areas, aren’t they?
She looked at me, the sun shining on her beautiful fur and I guess her heart just stopped beating and then she was gone leaving me there with her head in my arms.

Her body rests now in her most loved spot, and her spirit runs free with all that have gone before her and with her special friend Pulgui, who went two years ago.

Run free sweet Hori, have lots of fun and find youself somebody who spoils you up there! We’ll see you again some day, but meanwhile we won’t forget you!

but so good!
I even tried to roll in the grass (people tell me it was kind of cute to see me nosediving!) anyway, I was lucky that mum took the pic once I had recovered my dignity and wasn’t sprawled there!