Lord, he is old and weakened,
He walks where he used to run,
In his youth he was always a happy dog,
Now he sleeps his days away in the sun.
Please make his trail mostly level
As he travels these last few miles,
Provide shade away from the heat of day
Where he can stop and rest for awhile.
If it rains let the drops be gentle,
If it blows let the breeze be warm,
Let the winter of life be kind,
Provide shelter and keep him from harm.
Please Lord, if he must suffer,
Give the pain and hurting to me,
He has been thru lifes raging waters,
As only a mans dog can be.
He doesnt deserve to be hurting,
He has lived a hard and long time,
I hope as he leaves he'll be knowing
Your love, as he has always known mine.
I raised him, Lord, from a puppy
We have followed some rough rocky trails,
Please Lord, Make this last trail gentle,
As he come to where love never fails.

She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.
Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn
To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor
And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog! Good dog!"

We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.
The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.
As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin
And her heart was learning to lie down forever.

Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed
And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.
We found her twisted and limp but still alive.
In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried

To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur
And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.
Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,
Nevertheless she sand and, stiffening, disappeared.

Back home, we found that in the night her frame,
Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame
Of diarrhea and had dragged across the floor
To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.