Doggoned Odd

Small American towns like to have parades.  Fourth of July, local festivals, really any excuse will do. At such events you get a broad spectrum of participation.  The school marching band. Beauty queens smiling and waving.  Politicians doing the same thing.  Sports teams, church youth groups, etc.

Often they hand out or toss out items of trivial value for the spectators.  Candy, of course well wrapped, is the usual.

I was out of town but last week my Better Half attended our town's annual holiday parade.  Balmy weather ensured a record turn out.

One of the give away items tossed into the crowd was this:

I suppose it is fairly apparent that this organization is providing hospice, euthanasia and cremation for your pets and not for you.  But they don't exactly spell it out as clearly as they maybe should.

And I thought including the biscuit was a bad idea.  How in fact do we know it is not one of their special "euthanasia biscuits*"?  It's not as if dogs usually cast a quizzical eye at food items, sniff them carefully and then take a sample nibble before deciding if it is actually safe to eat.

I don't mean to make fun of the people running the business.  They provide an important service and would simply have to be the sort of folks who left a client's house with a tear in their eye.  Dogs give us so much.  They provide the entire circle of birth, joy of childhood, responsible adult life then decline and departure.  All compressed into a much shorter than human span and so all the more precious for each moment.

It made me think of the one bit of literature that makes me cry each and every darned time I read it:

Farewell to Blemie

It also makes me want a dog.
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*Pretty sure that Euthanasia Biscuits is another of those bands that my pal Sunny goes to see...