Tears in At the foot of the hill

Yes, I’m wiping tears at the news that my grand dog has passed over the Rainbow Bridge. My daughter got that little bundle of white fur for her 40th birthday some 13 years ago… One time when Papa and I were making the trip to visit her and the family in Montana, we had a flat tire on the truck. It was the first time we had to change a tire on that vehicle, and finding the jack and getting the spare out from under the box took awhile.

We were on a secondary highway right about the middle of Wyoming. Nothing but open space. We had stopped on a dirt side road that wound out across the prairie to some distant, unseen ranch. I got out and was walking around a little while Papa worked on the problem. I saw something bright turquoise blue in the ditch so walked over to investigate. I found a stuffed blue monkey dog toy, like new, just lying there waiting to be rescued. Somebody else had stopped on that same approach and the monkey had fallen out of the car. I felt sure that the original owner would never come back to that desolate place to look for it, so I took it as a gift for this little puppy we would meet that day.

It had squeakers in all it’s long, floppy appendages… and Snickers loved it! You know, for many, many years, whenever we went to visit them, he would greet us at the door and then run and dig that blue monkey out of his toy box and bring it to Papa for a game of toss, retrieve and squeak!

When the family adopted a sister pooch for Snickers, the monkey finally lost it’s charm, its squeakers and appendages as well as its glass eyes, nose and stuffing… But it was really something how he connected us with that toy, even though we only visited a couple of times a year.

Rest in peace, dear old Snickers. You will be missed.