[mobirdhunter]

We had to have our Cedar put to sleep last week after her year long fight with cancer. I had desperately hoped to be able to hunt over her again at least one time this coming season. She had surgery last year to remove a melanoma growth in her mouth that took part of her upper jaw and hard palette. Elaine nursed her for a couple of months, and Cedar, wearing her protective collar, enjoyed going on all our hunting trips with us. She took not being able to hunt in stride.

She was, as all are and have been, a one-of-a-kind personality. Elaine and I often joked that she might have had Asperger Syndrome as she avoided being touched and would go off by herself to peer out into the distance, hoping to see a bird or squirrel. But in her last hours struggling to breath wth cancer in her lungs, she climbed into my lap wanting me to help her. I hope I did.

In her last days she loved to sit at the window upstairs and gaze out over the yard, and she loved to go to breakfast with us, sitting in the back seat and watching birds out of the window.

I know from reading my colleagues posts that there are many on this forum that understand firsthand a hunter's bond with his dog. There is nothing like it, and there was nothing quite like Cedar. In my perhaps misguided perception of the after life, I believe she is hunting with her buddy, Peat, who died in October. They were a pair, and they loved each other dearly. It's a comforting thought to believe that all of our dogs when they pass have a place to go to wait for us -- a place that has birds, wonderful weather, no thorns, and a warm bed at end of day.