Farm Fresh Blog

Saturday, June 26 2010

Eulogy

Twenty years from now, someone will dig up the garden outside the kitchen window and wonder

why there is a bag of kitchen trash buried with a dog. You may be wondering that yourself.

Yesterday when we buried Kona we struggled to find something to bury with him, some treasure

that he lived for, something to carry with him along his journey. But stuffed animals,

bones, and tennis balls were just not his thing. So Other Half came up with an idea that

despite the crappy day, had me laughing through the tears.

"Bury him with a bag of garbage!"

It was perfect! Kona, The Enforcer, was THE Quintessential Garbage Hound. From the time he

was a toddler, he was raiding garbage cans. We used to keep the garbage can under the sink.

He learned to open the cabinet. We put bungee cords on the cabinet doors. He tore the

cabinet molding off and chewed the bungee cords in half. (I KNOW! He was a BEAST!)

Soooo. . . I bought a fancy $70 brushed metal trash can with a step-pedal that lifted the

lid. He learned to step on the pedal and lift the lid.

So we started keeping the garbage in small plastic bags in the kitchen sink that had to be

carried outside the main gate and placed into the outside garbage can EVERY TIME YOU LEFT

THE HOUSE! If you failed, even once, to remove that bag from the sink, he would have it

shredded all over the kitchen floor when you returned. Just last week I had to call Other

Half and have him return home because we forgot to take the garbage sack with us. He had

made it exactly one-tenth of a mile down the street. By the time Other Half walked into the

kitchen, Kona already had the bag on the floor. (Evil Beast!)

Kona was my Cadaver Dog. He retired shortly after I moved to the Crime Scene Unit. This was

through no fault of his. Dead people on duty and off duty was a bit too much for me, so he

retired to be a full-time ranch dog. He handled retirement quite well. It didn't matter to

him if he was looking for a dead people or looking for rats in the hay barn, a job was a

job.

I still vividly remember his last cadaver search. He was called to find skeletal remains

that had been scattered over a building site by a bulldozer. It was already summer in

Texas. It was hot. He worked like a trooper and soon found what turned out to be a key

piece of evidence - a large chunk of skull. It was the back of man's head. In the back of the skull

was a bullet hole. Our victim had been murdered.

That was the last time he worked for the medical examiner's office, but he worked the rest

of his life keeping rats out of the barn, carrying hammers and buckets for me, and generally

enforcing all the rules on the farm.

He and Blue Heeler hated each other. Since Blue Heeler was a puppy, Kona tormented him

without mercy. I promised him I won't let Blue Heeler piss on his grave.

He was my cadaver dog. He was my farm dog. He was my friend.

Godspeed, Little Buddy

Posted by: forensicfarmgirl AT 10:15 am | Permalink | 3 Comments | Email

Comments:

Makes perfect sense to me. My mother kept a few chickens, but she especially loved her Aracaunas and the blue eggs they laid. She had all the hens named after her long-gone aunts. The last thing I did on the morning of Mom's funeral was to trek out to the henhouse and find a fresh blue egg. I tucked it in her pocket before they closed the casket. My 2 sisters had a fit....*What if it rots?? What if it breaks??* And my answer was *What difference will it make??*

Posted by Diane I. on 06/26/2010 - 01:42 PM

What wonderful tributes by a lovely person for a partner she loves still, and always will.....

Posted by Shari on 07/02/2010 - 09:10 PM

All I can say is you gotta have your partner's back . . . and you did. Good on y'all. RIP

Posted by Ken and Mary of Fancy Fibers Farm, Texas on 08/11/2010 - 04:15 PM