Saturday, March 1, 2014

sultanahmet comments on What's the stupidest thing you thought was true as a kid?

I have a story somewhat related to your comment.
When I was 10, I had a dog named Doggy (I wasn't a creative kid). Doggy was a Great Dane, and a very emotional dog. He would get attached to anyone who showed him affection and was always happy, with that adorable wide smile that dogs have.
When he was still a puppy, we moved to the countryside which had a lot of open space behind our house. Although he wasn't an overly active dog, he would always just chill on the grass behind the house playing with one of the dozens of toys I bought for him.
One day after I came back from school, I went to see him and he was laying on the grass belly up laughing with his mouth and his eyes wide open with this small white kitten standing next to him and just staring at him. I can vividly remember that moment because of what happened next. The kitten started copying him. I could not stop laughing because it was like the kitten was making fun of him and as soon as Doggy realised what she was doing he just stood up and didn't look impressed.
I found out that this kitten belonged to our neighbours and for the next 5 years, until we had to move house again, they were completely inseparable. I'm not sure what breed the kitten was but while my Dane got absolutely huge, she only got as big as his legs so it was hilarious watching them together. Doggy would wake up in the morning and go out to the garden waiting for the kitten, and after a while she would come out and they would be with each other for the rest of the day. I started buying food for both my dog and the kitten, and would feed them together. They would chase each other around the trees, they would eat and drink together, and they even licked each other for some reason. They seemed so comfortable together and I was especially impressed with the cat, she was very brave hanging out with this huge dog 3 times her size.
This went on for about 5 years until my dad found a job in another city and we had to move. I could see Doggy knew that something was going to happen and got moody a few days prior to the moving date. He would be in the garden as soon as the sun came out and would stay there all day, even if some days the cat didn't leave the house, which happened during the last few days we were there. We didn't get along with our neighbours so I never went to their house to ask for the cat but before we left I knocked on the door so they could say goodbye to each other but no one answered.
I tried to tell my dad not to move but he thought I was crazy for not wanting to move to a better house and a bigger city just because a dog and cat spent some time with each other but I knew what they had was something deeper than that.
It was time to move and I literally had to drag Doggy to the car because he would try to run back to the garden. After a 3 hour car ride, we reached our new house and as soon as I let Doggy out he went to the garden of that house and just sat there as if he was waiting for her.
He would do this every morning, just sit in this garden waiting for the cat that never came. After about a month or so, I could sense that he was very distressed and eating about half of what he normally ate. He would refuse to play with me or let me walk him. He wouldn't interact with anyone, just sit in the garden silently staring into the distance.
One morning, I heard my mum calling me from the garden and I ran out to see that Doggy was laying down breathing heavily and not responding to us. We took him to the vet immediately where they told us that he had suffered a Myocardial Infarction, a heart attack, and it was likely he would never recover properly. He got well enough so we could take him back home and a few days later, he passed away peacefully in his sleep. I was the one who discovered his body and could not stop crying for hours after.
My mum bought a dog coffin that same day and since we still owned the house we moved from, I wanted him buried there because that's where the best memories of his life were. We cleaned him up, put him in the coffin and took him there. As my dad was digging a hole in the garden, the neighbour who owned the cat knocked on the door. What she said gave me goosebumps.
The cat had a disease which not only stunted her growth, but would likely be the cause of an early death. Just before the cat died, she was very sick but would still come out to play with Doggy. The reason Doggy was sad was because he somehow knew she didn't have long to live, and I discovered that the reason the cat didn't come out the few days before we moved was because she had already passed away.
The owner loved her cat as much as I loved Doggy, and had buried her right on the edge of her garden where the entrance to our house was. We buried Doggy next her.
This was probably the best friendship I will ever see in my life.
-thank you to whoever bought me the gold but you really shouldn't have, I'm not even a frequent user of this site. I'll try be here for at least another month now because of your gift.

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